


Folie à Deux

by cyndrarae



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Bottom Jared, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Smoking, Top Jensen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndrarae/pseuds/cyndrarae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of Jensen Ackles, a neurotic, self-absorbed painter unable to resist a certain pair of magnetic eyes, and his 'accidental' muse with a sordid, mysterious past. But who is this Tristan Winslow really? And why is Jensen so hell-bent on repeating the mistake that once nearly cost him his life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Simon's arc in As Good As It Gets - I just imagined J2 in that situation and I wanted it to end well, well, better :)   
> I own absolutely no one mentioned in this story. All characters are fictional albeit modeled on real people. No offense or defamation is intended. Not for profit, just a creative outlet for fun. No attempt has been made to be true to the real life characters. This is AU and purely and completely fiction. Written for spn_j2_bigbang 2010.

**_[Prologue]_ **

**_Matt and Tom, 1st July 2007._**  

  
  
It hit him around closing time at the art house, that sinking feeling of inevitability he would never forget. A throbbing hunch that things were about to change, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.   
  
Matt Bomer was twenty-five then, a young, dynamic entrepreneur and proud co-owner of the beautiful E.Durance art gallery that his best friend and business partner, Tom, helped him build from scratch four years ago. Okay, maybe not from scratch. They bought out an old cynic who got sick of watching potential Picassos piss it all away on drugs, booze, and kinky go-go boys. They renovated her – rescued her, to be more precise, renamed her, and she was their baby now. But this story’s not about the gallery. Or even Matt, although he does have a significant role to play.   
  
Usually, Matt was found sporting casuals – layers of sweaters, his favorite jeans made of the softest couture denim (Versace, of course), and his old college hoodie with the words ‘Carnegie Mellon’ embellished on the back. Of course he could dress sharp too, on occasion, if the occasion called for it. And that night, it called. Or so he thought.   
  
He had on perfectly fitted silver slacks and a dinner jacket over an impossibly white silk shirt. It was their three-year anniversary, he and his boyfriend’s, and he wanted the night to be absolutely perfect. But Matt’s boyfriend had, as expected, forgotten all about it. He’d always known Jensen wasn’t the anniversary remembering type really, or birthdays even.   
  
Sometime after six, he dialed Jensen’s number and waited seven rings before he got through. As always, he got a silent huff of breath for a hello, rolled his eyes and spoke first. “Hey! I’m calling to confirm our dinner plans? I got reservations at Le Bernardin for eight.”   
  
He tried not to sound as smug as he felt. It was virtually impossible to get a table at that celebrated French restaurant on short notice, but happily a friend of a friend of a friend of Tom’s had come through. It had been a nerve-wrackingly long wait, and Matt couldn’t wait to tell Jensen all about it.   
  
“Not tonight, Mattie. I gotta work.”   
  
Matt felt his heart nosedive into the pit of his stomach. That moment, one could argue, was the beginning of the end, clichéd as that may sound. Later, he would find that Tom disagreed, that it had in fact been ending for months now, while he was still too blinded by love to notice.   
  
“But I-I… I gave you fair warning, Jensen, three whole weeks in advance.”   
  
“I know and I’m sorry, babe. It’s just… I’m on a roll here. You know how it is, I can’t stop. Not tonight.”   
  
Of course. That street rat Jensen had picked up at the Farmer’s Market in Union Square last week, Tristan something.   
  
Over the years, Matt had put up with a lot of Jensen’s crap – his mood swings, his tempers, his sudden bouts of inspiration that struck anytime anywhere. But there was only so much artistic leeway he could give to this eccentric painter he called a (steady) boyfriend. Especially with this new guy modeling for him of late. Matt hadn’t met him or seen him even, but the amount of time Jensen had been spending with the guy was enough to send up some clear red flags, even for someone as trusting as Matt.   
  
“Honestly, Jensen, this obsession of yours with your new model is freaking me out a little.”   
  
“What the hell does that mean?”   
  
Matt sighed, actually chiding himself for feeling envious of what was clearly just work for Jensen. At least, he hoped that was all it was.   
  
“I-I mean, what do you even know about him? You didn’t even get the agency to background-check him first, did you?”   
  
“…”   
  
“Jensen?”   
  
“Yeah, look, I have to go. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. Why don’t you take Tom? He enjoys uptight pretentious places like that, doesn’t he?”   
  
Matt sighed again, trying not to feel too hurt by Jensen‘s snide remark unmistakably directed at his own taste in restaurants. “Jensen…”   
  
The man just chuckled on the other end. “I’m kidding, c’mon. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”   
  
 _Tomorrow_. Not tonight. Matt hung up, dejected. No point saying goodbye or “I love you”. It’d been awhile since he got a response worth writing about anyway.   
  
  


*******

   
  
Guess there was no forgetting that fateful day for twenty-six year old Tom Welling either. He sat perched on his desk, watching his best friend talk to Jensen on the phone. Matt stood with his feet crossed awkwardly one over the other, waist jutting out to the left subconsciously. It was the pose Matt struck when he wasn’t aware he was being watched.   
  
Yeah, Tom noticed things like that. He was the BFF, after all. He also listened keenly to the one-sided conversation, not that he needed to. The sudden drooping of Matt’s shoulders was enough to tell what had transpired. That useless boyfriend of his didn’t remember it was their anniversary, and he was blowing Mattie off.   
  
After he hung up, Matt managed to somehow conceal his flip-phone in his tight pants and compose himself as much as he could, schooling the sadness away from his face. He turned towards Tom with a dim plastic smile pasted on his paling face, shrugging helplessly.   
  
“Okay, you win.”   
  
Tom stood up, not happy at all to be right, again. He dug his hands into his own pockets, classic black Gucci suit accentuating his dark, full-body tan and contrasting with Matt‘s soft silver attire. (What? They were art curators for God’s sake.)   
  
“I keep telling you, should’ve left that grouch and run away with me years ago.”   
  
Matt cracked a real smile at that. “So says the happily married man of five years who runs an art gallery named after his beloved  _wife_.”   
  
Tom pursed his naturally red lips and went over to Matt, towering over him by a few inches. Matt calmly stepped forward and buried his face into the broad chest. They stood that way for a couple of minutes.   
  
“I think you know what you need to do, Mattie.”   
  
Matt didn’t reply, just shuddered quietly as he pulled away. Tom’s heart ached at having to be the one to do this, say this. But he wouldn’t be doing Matt any favors if he didn’t verbalize what he’d been sensing for a while now. If it wasn’t this model, it would be someone else.  _Something_  else.   
  
“Would you mind if I join you for dinner? You know I love that place.”   
  
Matt snorted. “You just love uptight pretentious places, don’t you?”   
  
“I love the fact that we can  _afford_  uptight pretentious places.”   
  
Matt rolled his eyes and Tom chuckled. Sure he had a penchant for the finer things in life. But what he really, truly valued were his friends and family, and was more than happy to splurge on them if it made  _them_  happy. Part of him knew though, that nothing so inconsequential would work for Matt. He wasn’t going to figure out what could until much, much later. But that’s another story.   
  
“C’mon, let’s go. I’m hungry.”   
  
Matt bit his lip. “Can we just, go to your place instead? Maybe just watch a movie, or something?”   
  
Tom nodded, eager to do anything to help Matt forget this latest heartbreak caused by his callous, self-centered boyfriend. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried about Jensen hurting Matt again after that night. But to be honest, he wouldn’t have wished for things to go down the way they did, not even for his worst enemy.   
  
Let alone Jensen.   
  
Tom put a bulky arm around Matt’s shoulders and led him out of the gallery, switching all the lights off behind them, casting into darkness acclaimed works of eighty-three renowned contemporary artists, including Jensen R. Ackles.   
  
  
  


*******

  
  
**[i]**  
  
 ** _Jensen, 1st July 2007._**    
  


On the eighteenth floor of the Chelsea Vanguard, Jensen Ackles stood in front of his easel and narrowed his eyes. His overalls were smudged with paint and charcoal, as were his hands, as he bent to pick out a fresh piece of charcoal from a box lying nearby on the floor. He looked at his half-done sketch critically, then gazed across the studio to the subject he was attempting to capture on canvas. An attempt he was failing quite spectacularly at.   
  
When Jensen had first set eyes on Tristan, it was like a switch had been thrown somewhere in the back of his head and bright warm light pervaded his senses, chasing away years of darkness. He was tall and lean and youthfully slender. Couldn’t be more than twenty, maybe, give or take a few months. He was also kind of shabby, his bleached blond hair was greasy and wild, and his jacket and jeans had definitely seen better days. Jensen didn’t understand what it was that drew him to Tristan so intensely. Sure he was sort of symmetrically pleasing to look at, but not extraordinarily so. And yet, Jensen had found himself breaking away from his friends immediately, walking up to him, making quick introductions, and asking if he wanted a part-time job modeling for art.   
  
At first, Tristan laughed.   
  
“Is that a pick-up line? ‘Cause you sure could do a whole lot better, darlin’.” He drawled in a thick Texan accent. But he hadn’t retreated, his body language still accessible. He might have even leaned in a little.   
  
Jensen handed him a calling card with his home address on it. “Not a pick up line, no. Just a job if you’re available. My name is Jensen. Jensen Ackles? I-I’m a painter.”   
  
Contemporary artists weren’t exactly celebrities, and Jensen was hardly the publicity-hungry type. But deep inside, he’d quietly hoped the kid  _would_  recognize the name. Which, of course he didn’t.   
  
“Tristan Winslow,” he said holding out a hand for Jensen to shake. “So, this job… you mean like sitting for you to paint me and stuff, right?”   
  
“Well, not paint  _you_ , just, you know, your portrait,” Jensen grinned brightly, awkwardly, waiting for Tristan to quit chewing on the piece of gum in his mouth and say something.   
  
“Um, I don’t know man, thanks and all, but, that sounds kinda borin’ to me…”   
  
The last thing Jensen wanted was to let this man out of his sight. So he told Tristan how much he was willing to pay for an hour. Tristan’s mouth stopped moving, and he looked down at the card again and back up at Jensen with widening eyes.   
  
“When do we start?”   
  
That was six days ago. Tristan now lay on the pre-finished teak flooring, stretched out on his stomach right where Jensen wanted him. He’d taken off his shirt, putting the still developing muscles of his arms in tantalizing display. Pale white, almost alabaster skin contrasted with the dark floor to eye-popping effect. His jeans were faded and tattered at the knees and right under the curve of one hip. And they seemed two sizes too big, draped over Tristan’s narrow waist shapelessly, as low as low could be. They gaped slightly right at the cleft of his butt, and that little  _gap_ … Jensen found himself completely infatuated with it.   
  
Matt was right. Jensen was obsessed.   
  
Tristan’s face was turned towards Jensen, one cheek softly squished against the floor, mysterious almond eyes fixed on the artist who stood across the room. Jensen had drawn and discarded four sketches already, not convinced he was getting it right – this enthralling vision before him. The model didn’t seem to mind though. He was getting paid more than generously for his time after all. But a little voice (or hope) told Jensen the wages weren’t his only motivation to come back every afternoon after lunch, and stay till sundown every night.   
  
The antique grandfather clock in the living room struck a loud nine, startling Tristan and making him look up. Jensen followed his model’s glance up towards the digital clock inside the studio.   
  
“Big plans tonight?”   
  
Tristan shook his head and resumed his pose. “I thought  _you_  did.”   
  
Jensen remembered then: his short, unhappy conversation with Matt three hours ago. He wiped his hands on a cloth rag. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening.”   
  
The model frowned a little, but didn’t comment. Jensen’s eyes were drawn again to the gaping space between Tristan’s jeans and his sinfully tempting ass. He ambled across the twelve feet or so to reach Tristan, going down on his knees beside the long, sinewy body.   
  
“This keeps slipping off,” he whispered with mock-annoyance. He pulled the back of the fragile-looking denim upwards on Tristan’s ass. The responsive heat in Tristan’s eyes was unmistakable.   
  
Jensen let his palm rest on top of the fabric and when Tristan didn’t protest, he slid his hand down the perfectly shaped backside in a soft caress. Tristan’s lips fell open as he gasped silently but didn’t take his eyes off Jensen, not for a second. The temptation to kiss him was undeniably strong. But something held Jensen back.   
  
Maybe it was the realization that he was still in a relationship, defunct as it may be. Or maybe it was a niggling little hunch that Tristan wasn’t ready yet, despite the brave, almost cocky front he put up. Something was holding the kid back too. Maybe nerves. Maybe something else.   
  
“Would you like to take a break?”   
  
Tristan licked his lips, dropping his eyes for the first time. “Uh, yeah, I need to make a phone call.”   
  
He stood up and put his shirt back on, which Jensen instantly regretted. He couldn’t wait to finish the painting and maybe by that time he’d have plucked up enough courage to ask Tristan out. Or at the very least bend him over the nearest horizontal surface, sink into his depths and stay there until the sun came back up again.   
  


 

*******

 

  
Jensen stepped onto the balcony and lit up a cigarette. The view of Manhattan from the eighteenth floor after sundown never ceased to take his breath away even after five years of living in this city. At twenty-six years of age, Jensen was confident he was doing alright. He wasn’t very materialistically ambitious to begin with – all he needed was a place he could call his own where he could paint and sleep in peace, for his art to see the light of day and be recognized for what it was worth, and for his family back in Texas to be provided for generously. Given these needs, he was doing more than okay really.   
  
Except for this situation with Matt, that he needed to resolve soon as possible. It wasn’t fair to Matt, and it sure as hell wasn’t fair to Tristan, if Jensen did decide to make his move sometime soon.   
  
He leaned against the balcony door, turning to look at the man in the living room. Tristan looked agitated, one hand holding the phone to his ear and the other entangled in the back of his hair. He was biting his lip and looked like he was having an argument with someone, one he wasn’t winning. Jensen decided to linger on in the balcony for a bit, give Tristan his privacy.   
  
Ten minutes later, Tristan came out. His eyes darted nervously, and he was still biting his lip like a twitchy little schoolgirl.   
  
“What was that about?”   
  
“Nobody, just a friend. He… asked me out to dinner last week and I said I would but, now…”   
  
Jensen’s heart skipped a beat. “Now, what?”   
  
“Now, since you don’t have any plans either, I was wondering if maybe, you and I could, you know, get something to eat?”   
  
Jensen smiled and stepped closer. And when Tristan stayed, he put his hands on each side of Tristan’s face, pulling him down into a kiss. It didn’t last long, Jensen didn’t want to push and Tristan was still tense. Jensen slid his hands down to Tristan’s neck, then to his shoulders and down his elbows to his gigantic hands. Tristan seemed a little taken aback by the way Jensen held his hands, but he allowed it.   
  
“Okay, you’re a growing boy, and I haven’t fed you all day.” Jensen smirked. “So how about I cook you something delicious? I make killer pasta.”   
  
“Uh…”   
  
“Fine, if you don’t trust my culinary skills we could order in, whatever you want.” Jensen pretended to be offended, hoping that way his suggestion to stay in wouldn’t sound too... suggestive.   
  
“I was sorta hopin’ maybe we could go out? To like, a steakhouse, maybe?”   
  
Jensen sighed. Why he could never share his lovers’ inclinations for eating out, he’d never know. “Grab your stuff. I’ll be right back.”   
  
Five minutes later, he’d changed into suitable outdoor clothes and plucking his keys off the mantle, they headed for the door. He punched the security code and locked up behind them, then rode an elevator down to the basement parking with Tristan lingering two steps behind.   
  
Jensen drove a Toyota Tundra. His manager, Samantha Smith, and Matt always told him he could do so much better. He soon realized by ‘better’ they meant ‘costlier’, more ‘upstate New York’ and less ‘hillbilly Texas’, but he didn’t care. It got him from A to B and it could haul ass, that’s all that mattered.   
  
“You seem nervous,” he said, after about five minutes of silent driving. Reaching out for Tristan’s closest hand, he realized it was cold and clammy.   
  
Tristan turned to him, letting go of the lower lip he’d been chewing on. “Nah, just… this is so… I don’t know, new I guess. I don’t usually get to do this.”   
  
“Do what?”   
  
“Go out with a nice guy like you.”   
  
“Just nice?” Jensen pouted.   
  
Tristan chuckled. “Well, nice and more.”   
  
“More what?”   
  
Tristan didn’t reply, just grinned enigmatically and turned towards his window. Jensen quietly relished the tingling beneath his skin, hoping Tristan would elaborate over dinner. He was sure Tristan would love Keens Steakhouse. The food was brilliant and the place was unpretentious, even if on the slightly expensive side. He figured Tristan wouldn’t have had a chance to go into a place like that yet, and a part of Jensen wanted to do this for Tristan, give him stuff he’d never had before, take care of him…   
  
Jensen remembered then. He braked suddenly, the Tundra screeching to a halt by the side of a narrow street, followed by a loud cacophony of honking in the background that he completely ignored.   
  
“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked.   
  
“This is embarrassing, I forgot my wallet back home.”   
  
“What?”   
  
Jensen put the gear in reverse and started to pull out of the one-way backwards. “It was in my other jacket, sorry, this won’t take very long.”   
  
“Ho-how about we keep going? I’ll pay.”   
  
Tristan couldn’t possibly afford the place Jensen had in mind. “It’s okay. We’re only like four blocks away.”   
  
“Hey, no seriously, we-we don’t have to turn around. We c-could go to this other place – I know it’s really good, it’s by the pier and…”   
  
“It’s okay, really. Won’t take very long, I promise.”   
  
Tristan didn’t hold his gaze too long. He looked straight up ahead and sat frozen in his seat. Ten minutes later, as promised, Jensen pulled up in front of the Chelsea Vanguard. “Why don’t you wait in the car? I’ll be right back.”   
  
Tristan stayed strangely still, face looking more ashen than usual. Jensen got out of the truck and took off running. He might have seen but didn’t  _quite_  register Tristan scrambling for his cell phone just as Jensen turned into the building. In retrospect, Jensen should have understood something was wrong then. And maybe a small part of him did, but he was too blinded by his growing feelings for Tristan at the time to pay attention.   
  
  
  


*******

  
  
Thirty-two hours later, Jensen woke up in a hospital bed, flanked by Matt and Tom on one side, and his parents and brother on the other. Matt looked stricken like he hadn’t slept in a week, and his mom looked like she hadn’t stopped crying in just as long. His right leg was broken, along with a bunch of ribs, and his left hand, the one he drew and painted with, was also in a cast. One eye was swollen shut, and his lip was split so badly they had to put in six stitches. They told him he’d been in a coma, owing to blood loss and a head injury, and that’s when he remembered the blood-spattered baseball bat.   
  
Cops came in an hour later to get his statement. Jensen Ackles had walked in on a break-in in progress at his apartment. Jensen had gotten a brief look at the men in the five odd seconds of them being taken unawares by his abrupt return. They were just three ordinary men dressed in ordinary street clothes from the Bronx, one African-American and two Caucasian. But they had known Jensen’s security code and had easily strolled in while still managing to evade all security cameras. They had clearly already scoped the place out and planned their moves well in advance.   
  
The cops asked him how they could have known his code, suspecting an inside job.   
  
Jensen’s eyes blurred. All he could think was the first (and last) time he’d kissed Tristan in that apartment. It had been a perfect moment, a perfect day, and it could have been such a perfect night…   
  
But now all he could remember was getting ambushed by a bunch of freaked out hooligans with knives and crowbars, and how just when he was on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness, Tristan had come bounding through the broken door, screaming: “No! Hartley, don’t!”   
  
Jensen had turned towards Tristan, and the look on that face had been like a spear stabbing through his heart. He knew then he was about to pay for still being a stupid, naïve boy from Richardson, Texas in the heartless city of Manhattan.   
  
They tried to kill him, why they couldn’t finish the job, he could only guess. Jensen told the cops everything that happened, but he left his model’s involvement out of it completely. Even told them he heard one white guy referring to the other white guy as Hartley. Jensen didn’t give the cops Tristan’s name.   
  
But Matt did.   
  
The abstract sketch Jensen had of Tristan was only a third done, and it showed an exaggeratedly thin male with exaggeratedly long limbs, lying on his stomach with a halo of bleached blond hair masking half his face. The color of the eyes was unreadable, actually it was still charcoaled in – there was no color at all. It gave no indication of how tall or how old he might be, nor were there any tell-tale signs or scars on the body. The cops got nowhere with it, not least because Jensen refused to recall any more details about his model. Doctors said it could be short-term memory loss or just PTSD blocking his memories, and didn’t let the cops push him too much.   
  
Few days later, the cops caught up with the perps and arrested all three of them. Three, not four. The fourth accomplice, a yet unidentified young man known to his partners only as Tristan, was unaccounted for, and remained that way for the rest of the investigation.   
  
Jensen didn’t care. He didn’t entertain any attempts from Matt or anyone to talk about what happened, nor did he show any interest in seeing justice done. He left it all to his manager and lawyers. The first words he uttered after waking up were to Sam, when she visited him in the hospital.   
  
“Get rid of that damn apartment.”   
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**[ii]  
**  
**_Jensen, 8th October 2009._**    
  


With her looks and her brains, Samantha Smith could have been cast perfectly as a Desperate Housewife, or so Jensen thought. She’d been his manager ever since he went commercial, and they’d gotten to know each other well during that time. She’d watched him go from a Pollock-y expressionistic influence when he began, to the increasingly contemporary realism stuff he was into now, albeit with his own brand of wild abstractionism thrown into the mix. Through it all, her patronage for his talent and her faith in his viability never wavered.   
  
And while she could be a shrewd businesswoman when needed, Jensen knew she also cared for him like he were family.   
  
“Are you sure this is what you want, sweetie?” She asked him for like the hundredth time.   
  
Jensen stood leaning against the newly refurbished granite kitchen counter. He looked around at his old apartment, on the eighteenth floor of the Chelsea Vanguard. The same apartment he’d lived in for four years, until he’d decided to get rid of it.   
  
“I know, you probably think I’m losing my mind…”   
  
Sam smirked. “Nonsense, I’d never think that. You’ve been crazy since the day I met you.”   
  
Jensen chuckled, and Sam walked over to stand beside him, leaning against the said counter. The place looked pretty much the same, except furniture was hidden under white sheets, and all the heavy window drapes were down, keeping the bright sun out. Jensen never kept the windows covered; he preferred to be able to look out into the sky from every nook and corner of his apartment.   
  
“Do you really think this would help?”   
  
Jensen shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s worth a try. Face my demons and all that shit, like the shrink says.”   
  
“You could take your time, you know, try South East Asia next, maybe?” she offered gently. “I mean, the art market is slow anyway, and you have enough saved to live off of for a decade, at least.”   
  
“It’s never been about the money, Sam, you know that.”   
  
“Of course. I just don’t want to leave you alone  _here_ , sweetie.”   
  
Jensen put an arm around her, and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I need to do this, Sam, I really do.”   
  
“Anything else I can do to help?”   
  
Jensen thought about it. “I could use a cleaning service?”   
  
Sam laughed, and made the call. After a light take-out lunch, she left, and Jensen stood in the middle of the living room, alone, already drowning in his regrets.   
  
He swiveled around on his feet, again and again, and one more time after that. He wondered how life would have turned out if he hadn’t laid eyes on Tristan at all. Maybe he’d have asked Matt to move in here with him. Maybe they would have still been together, built a life together.   
  
Maybe not.   
  
Fact was, his relationship with Matt had been eroding for a long time  _before_  Tristan entered their lives. Jensen had truly tried, and waited, hoping he’d grow to love Matt as much as Matt loved him, but never could. Far as his tastes ran – nice guys  _did_  finish last. He knew he liked them slightly rogue, kinda wild, dangerous even. Not the kind, refined and charming gentleman that Matt Bomer was.   
  
Naturally, a part of Jensen thought maybe it was his own fault – inviting a strange kid from the Bronx into his house. He’d been way too trusting, helpless to resist the mystery that was Tristan. And what a page-turner the guy turned out to be – a fucking crook, a ruthless conman, and a good one at that. He was still out there by the way, probably living it up somewhere in Cancun, enjoying the spoils of his unscrupulous young life.   
  
When it was time to escape the hospital, Jensen couldn’t bear to spend another day in this apartment, nor by painful extension, in this city. Matt saw it coming before Jensen could even say the words, and made himself scarce. Under normal circumstances, Jensen would have worried, but he’d been in no position to focus on anyone or anything except the excruciating rage and self-derision choking his heart and numbing his brain the longer he stuck around. He had to get away, from this cesspit of bad memories, from the rabid press dogging him wherever he went, from his overly fussy family and friends.   
  
He decided to flee to Europe.   
  
Living in Paris helped his body heal. But it didn’t turn out to be as inspiring or uplifting as he’d hoped it would be. New York refused to leave him wherever he went. Some of his best work had happened right here in this apartment. But now, ever since he’d left, he’d been having a dry spell. His muse was completely blocked.   
  
So he’d resolved to come back to where he’d lost it all. If he had to be miserable no matter where he stayed, what was wrong with Manhattan? Besides, he figured (with his shrink’s help) that maybe by confronting his past, he might be able to get  _past_  it once and for all, become the artist he once used to be. Painting was all he knew, all he was ever good at, all he ever wanted to do.   
  
Jensen owed it to himself to try again, and not let one stupid burglary assault (and a broken heart) snatch that away from him.   
  
He decided to install his home gym and punching bag (the one he’d bought in Nice and had been lugging around with him ever since) in the guest bedroom. After he’d exhausted himself putting together the ‘work-out’ room, he turned towards the second bedroom which used to be his studio. That room used to come to life every time a tall, almond-eyed kid stepped into it. Jensen trembled as he went to the spot where his easel used to be, and looked up across the room to where he’d laid Tristan down, contoured by the beautiful city skyline behind him.   
  
Such wickedness lurking behind such beauty… how could Jensen have not seen it? Or maybe he  _did_. Maybe it’s what attracted him to Tristan in the first place.   
  


  
*******

  
  
The next few days went by settling in: unpacking, shopping for groceries and art supplies and moving and shifting stuff around to set up his studio. Jensen couldn’t wait to start painting again. But a week later when everything else was in place, his muse still refused to cooperate.   
  
He left emails or voice messages with the few friends he’d made back in the day, letting them know he was back in town. Every single one of them called back, but Jensen couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone. Every single one left messages – glad he was back, good to know he was still alive and kicking, they should catch up sometime, how about this Saturday?   
  
Jensen never bothered to respond.   
  
The only guy Jensen did try reaching was Matt. He felt this giant need to mend things with his ex, to somehow find an opportunity to apologize for his inconsiderate behavior back then. Matt, unsurprisingly, refused to oblige. He did not take Jensen’s calls, nor did he respond to any of his messages; twelve to be exact.   
  
It wasn’t like Jensen could use the excuse of a new piece of art as a conversation-starter either. Of the four hundred odd galleries in Chelsea alone, the E.Durance was the only one that Jensen had ever used for promotion and sale of his art. In fact, that was how he and Matt had first met.   
  
One slow, chilly Monday afternoon, he decided to take a walk through the art colony in Chelsea in hopes of getting his muse stimulated, or at least worried that he hadn’t been on the public scene for a long time. Unlike movie stars, artists and sculptors, even the truly famous ones, never got recognized all that much. Only true connoisseurs of art would know their faces but they’d be too refined and polite to bother someone. Especially Jensen, who looked and acted so aloof he might as well be wearing a sign around his neck that said 'Trespassers will be persecuted, possibly glared to death'.   
  
Jensen kept his gaze down at his shoes or up at the art in the windows he walked past. When he came to the E.Durance, he paused, hoping to catch a glimpse of Matt from the outside of what looked like a newly renovated gallery, bigger, and swankier. Jensen stood around for awhile, smoking a couple of Marlboro Lights on the street, feeling like an idiot and more than a little stalker-ish. He gave up after thirty minutes; evidently neither partner was in at the moment. Disappointed, he turned back towards his fortress of solitude, leaving a thirteenth message on Matt’s mobile as he walked.   
  
“Hi, me again. Look, I realize I’m probably starting to creep you out but trust me – I’m not looking to revive old times here or shit. I know you’ve moved on, and I guess… I just… damn it. Mattie, I just want to know if you’re okay. And if… you wanna try and maybe be friends again? I’m working so hard to put the past behind me, really I am. And I need your help to–”   
  
The voicemail cut him off. Jensen sighed, and flipped his phone shut. He needed a drink, but it wasn’t even four yet. So he settled for caffeine instead.   
  
A Starbucks stood right under the Chelsea Vanguard, on a fast, hustling-and-bustling street that Jensen could conveniently ignore up on his luxurious eighteenth floor. He went past the building entrance to go to the café, casually glancing around him. He spotted a homeless guy, among other random things, crouched tightly beside a fire hydrant on the other side of the road, looking like he’d been sitting there for quite some time. He’d made himself comfortable, sitting with his knees folded up into his chest over a big pile of newspapers. A coffee cup from Starbucks was clutched between his hands, being used to warm him up. And he was looking into the cup with great intensity, as if willing the liquid inside to never go cold, never disappear.   
  
At first, Jensen looked away, not thinking much of the guy except wondering fleetingly what a homeless man was doing in a rather elite neighborhood like this one. The second time he glanced back, the hobo seemed to sense that he was being watched and looked up. Jensen slowed his gait, narrowing his eyes as he took a closer look. Something was awfully familiar about this guy…   
  
The homeless man stirred and started to unfurl, as if suddenly realizing what or  _who_  he was looking at. He was filthy, obviously, dressed in tattered ill-fitting jeans, a pair of boots that looked like they’d helped some brave old fireman serve an entire lifetime in the business, and what possibly might have once been a red parka jacket for a tall, plus-sized woman. The hair was – not blond, not blond at all. It was a greasy jet black, or maybe dark brown, and it was long, almost shoulder-length, hidden under a barely together black skull cap. The face was thin and lined with dirt, heavily ‘stached and bearded and the lips were practically blue with cold and clearly chapped. And the eyes… the narrowed slits of his eyes were blown wide open, reminiscent of a pair of peculiarly shaped eyes Jensen once knew, ones that changed color with the mood of the man they belonged to. Right then, at this distance, he couldn’t make out what color they were, but they sure looked dark. And they sure recognized Jensen, seeming almost  _relieved_  to do so.  
  
As if reading his mind, the homeless guy blinked, keeping his eyes closed for longer, much longer than needed. And then he stood up.   
  
Jensen felt the earth beneath his feet shift and melt away. It was the man rising to his full distinctive height of six feet four that clicked it all into place. Jensen couldn’t believe it. He told himself he was seeing things. He forced himself to turn away, started towards the coffee shop in a hurry. And when he gathered the courage to look again, there he still was, standing frozen, staring purposefully at Jensen.   
  
“Tristan.”   
  
The name spilled from Jensen’s lips in a harsh whisper, shrouded in a mouthful of steam and emotions he’d refused to verbalize in years.   
  
The men stood still, gawking at each other from across the street while the rest of the world went about its way around them. No one threw them a second glance, no one cared. Neither of the two moved for what felt a small eternity.   
  
Abruptly, Jensen blinked, forcefully, as if struggling to break himself out of a trance. He pushed his hands back into his pockets, suddenly realizing how cold it was, and turned away. Without a backward glance, he continued on his way to the coffee shop, went inside and ordered a Venti-sized drink. For a change he didn’t mind waiting in line, not whining about the ten minutes of his life that he lost and would never get back.   
  
When he stepped back out, Tristan hadn’t moved from his spot. Jensen looked at him once, forcing his eyes to glass over with… something, hatred maybe, indifference,  _hopefully_. He casually took a sip of his chai latte, and looked away. He didn’t acknowledge Tristan again as he stepped into the Vanguard lobby, nodded at the concierge and went up to his apartment.   
  
He wasn’t going to get any sleep that night, or several ones after that.   
  
  
  
*******

  
**  
  
[iii]   
**  
**_Jensen, 7th November 2009_**.   
  


Jensen carried on with a mundane existence he called life – following the same unproductive routine every day and night.   
  
He’d wake up at seven without an alarm clock, start his day with coffee and a cigarette, work out in his gym and whale away at his punching bag for an hour, jump into the shower, then come out and make himself breakfast. Some days he would cook something elaborate like bacon and French toast. Other days cereal would suffice. Then he’d go and stand in front of his easel for hours – starting a couple of sketches then summarily scrapping them, tearing the failed canvas to pieces because the blankness of them taunted him to near tears.   
  
Finally he’d give up around noon, go to the balcony and light a cigarette. And there he’d stand for the longest time, peering down at the miniature-sized world passing him by, from the safety of his ivory tower.   
  
Everyone went about their jobs like busy little ants on foot or in toy cars. Everyone that is, except one little dot on the other side of the 24th street, the one that stood static, at about the same spot every day, from sunrise to sunset. Where Tristan went to after that, Jensen didn’t know. Nor did he care, or so he told himself every day, every time he stood in his balcony, his green eyes seeking out that dot.   
  
Evenings were usually spent reading or teeing off at the Golf club on Pier 59, followed by a drink or two with fellow players, fending off advances from men and women alike. Of course, going out meant driving out to the street, past Tristan, in the same black Tundra that Tristan had been in minutes before he destroyed Jensen’s life.   
  
Nights were when he’d come back, pause outside the parking garage, trying to spot Tristan somewhere, anywhere. But the ‘homeless’ man would be long gone by then, only to come back again the next morning, all through October and straight into November.   
  
It started to snow in November.   
  
Jensen made plans to go home for Thanksgiving. He’d missed all family holidays these past two years and he really needed to make up for it or his mom wouldn't forgive him for as long as he lived. Matt still wouldn’t return his messages, which was exactly what he deserved. So yeah, life went on.   
  
One Saturday afternoon sometime after three, he came down to the lobby on a whim, and found the concierge, Mr. Beaver, standing by the revolving glass doors, his hands clasped behind his back in a professional stance. The Vanguard wasn’t supposed to have a concierge originally. But because of what happened to Jensen, management decided to put in more security measures, a concierge being one of them. This one was a friendly older man, a Marine veteran or something. Jensen couldn’t be sure if his name was actually Beaver or just a call sign that stuck. Jensen started to walk up to him, in hopes of having someone to make small talk with, something he hadn’t done in three days. Before he could open his mouth though, he followed the man’s line of sight, curious to see what he was so completely absorbed by.   
  
He paused, his good mood evaporating at the sight awaiting him across the street. Suddenly the idea of small talk didn’t seem all that appealing. Jensen turned to make a swift retreat.   
  
“Mr. Ackles?”   
  
Too late. Jensen twisted back around to face Mr. Beaver. “Hi, I, uh… you look like you’re on a break.”   
  
“I am. Care to join me? I have great coffee.”   
  
Mr. Beaver smiled, and Jensen didn’t want to know what the old man knew to make him smile so darn knowingly. He relented and walked up to the concierge, allowed him to pour him hot coffee in a Styrofoam cup from a silver thermos. Jensen took a tentative sip. Beaver wasn’t exaggerating; it really was great coffee.   
  
“Mind if I ask you something, Mr. Ackles?”   
  
“Only if you call me Jensen.”   
  
“Deal. My friends call me Jim, by the way.”   
  
Jensen took the extended hand and shook it warmly. “What’s on your mind, Jim?”   
  
Jim turned towards the doors again, and Jensen didn’t need to know what, or rather who he was looking at. “Don’t you think it’s weird for a homeless kid to be hanging around here in this neighborhood, in the same spot, day in and day out for a whole month?”   
  
“…”   
  
“He’s got to be freezing his ass out there.”   
  
Jensen huffed and finally took a look as well. Tristan was leaning against a far wall, smoking a cigarette. Who knew where he got it from.   
  
“A month, you say?”   
  
“Yep,” Jim turned to look at Jensen. “About the same time you’ve been here, actually.”   
  
Jensen looked away, swallowed.   
  
“I tried offering him something to eat in exchange for him moving along,” Jim explained. “He takes the food but comes back after a while anyway. Hides when he sees cops approaching, but other than that, nothing seems to shake him from that spot. He just stands there, staring up at the Vanguard like nobody’s business.”   
  
Jensen swallowed again. “Did you try asking him what he wants?”   
  
“A couple times, but he doesn’t say much. Actually I’ve never heard a word out of that kid’s mouth. He isn’t begging, which is why I don’t want to call the services on him. He just… stands there. _Quietly_.”   
  
“…”   
  
“Do  _you_  know what he wants, Mr. Ackles?”   
  
Jensen turned to look at Beaver then, understanding that knowing (but not judging) look in the old man’s eyes. He sure did observe and understand more than he let on. Too bad he wasn’t around two years ago.   
  
Jim waited expectantly for a reply and Jensen sighed. He should have been asking this question himself. Instead he’d been running away from it all month. Jensen drank the last of the delicious coffee, crushed the cup and let it sail to the nearest waste basket. He pulled his jacket lapels together and turned to Beaver.   
  
“I guess it’s time we found out. Thanks Jim.” He added after a second, “for the coffee.”   
  
  


*******

  
  
Jensen stepped out of the Vanguard, and crossed the street in long strides, moving determinedly towards Tristan who, at first, wasn’t sure what was happening. Then he straightened up, suddenly realizing that Jensen was heading straight for him. His eyes went wide, his lips falling open, breath rushing out of his mouth in short, rapid bursts.   
  
Jensen stopped five feet away from Tristan for two reasons. One, he stank. And two, because he was really disgustingly filthy and  _stank_. Jensen put his hands in his jacket pockets and shrugged.   
  
“Okay, I’m here. What do you want?”   
  
Jensen saw his Adam’s apple bob nervously. But Tristan didn’t respond, just kept staring with his unreadable eyes. Hazel. Dull and spark-less, and tending towards a dark grey.   
  
“What? Did you forget something at my place and want it back?”   
  
“…”   
  
“You know I could call the cops and still turn you in. The statute of limitations isn’t over yet.”   
  
Tristan still held his tongue and Jensen was starting to lose patience. That face, those eyes, those damned reminders of how foolish Jensen had been, how foolish and how smitten…   
  
Jensen charged him, shoving Tristan into the wall with a loud crash, almost strangling him in his insane rage that made him forget everything else including the stench.   
  
“Why are you here, huh? What do you fucking want from me?”   
  
No answer.   
  
Jensen grunted and let him go, sending his gaunt frame crashing back into the wall one more time. Tristan didn’t even react to the pain he must have surely felt. Jensen retreated, started to pace back and forth, staring back into Tristan’s listless eyes all the time.   
  
It really was Tristan.  _He came back._  
  
Seconds or maybe hours ticked away. Jensen stopped pacing and put his fists on his hips, shaking his head angrily. He couldn’t believe he was doing this again.   
  
“You eaten yet?”   
  
It was Tristan’s turn to look shocked, for once an element of  _life_  returning to his eyes. Slowly, he shook his head. Jensen dug his hands back in his pockets, it was really cold out here, and Tristan was nowhere near dressed for it. Jensen started to cross the street, turning back to Tristan briefly.   
  
“Comin’ or what?”   
  
A decade passed, it seemed, before Tristan decided to move. Quietly, he followed the artist across the street, staying five feet away from him at all times. His boots squeaked as he walked, and he took rapid, uncertain steps, stopping every now and then to look up at Jensen, as if expecting the other man to change his mind any second.   
  
Beaver, who’d been watching from the inside, quickly fell back into his role of a concierge. When Jensen walked in, he didn’t comment, just nodded cordially. When Tristan followed, walking with trepidation towards the elevators where Jensen stood waiting, Beaver nodded at him too and just as warmly. Jensen watched as Tristan practically bowed in response, hugging himself self-consciously as his loud shoes (duct-taped to keep from falling apart) echoed through the Vanguard’s immaculate lobby.   
  
Jensen kept shaking his head all the way up to the eighteenth floor, wishing he’d made Tristan take the stairs instead. He told himself it was the  _stench_  that kept triggering his gag reflex, nothing else.   
  
  


*******  
 

  
  
Upstairs, Jensen opened the door and let Tristan in first, silently vowing never to turn his back to this man again. Tristan looked around, taking in everything as quietly as he’d done everything else. Jensen had done up the place almost the same as it was before with the exception of a few color palette changes, an upgraded entertainment center with the latest bug-sized Bose speakers, and a new Wii.   
  
Of course with Tristan here, standing in the middle of his living room, Jensen immediately regretted the excessive use of off-white in his new scheme. He cleared his throat. “Maybe you should take off your coat and shoes at the door.”   
  
It wasn’t a question. Tristan blinked but readily complied. He walked back out to the foyer and, very carefully, pulled off his ratty boots, afraid they might come apart in his hands if he used too much force. Then he took off that atrocious red parka, and the sight made Jensen’s heart fall to his guts.   
  
The baggy, ripped jeans were the same pair Tristan used to wear while modeling for Jensen. They had seemed so fragile back then, Jensen was surprised to see they’d survived, somewhat, despite Tristan’s radical lifestyle. He had lost weight, and given his unusual height, looked even more wiry and ganglier than before.   
  
And he still stank. Jensen’s nose twitched. “You wanna go wash up?”   
  
Tristan had been so busy folding his parka and putting it oh-so cautiously beside his precious boots that the words startled him a bit. He stood up again, unsure of what to do with his hands hanging uselessly by his sides, swallowed and uttered his first words to Jensen.   
  
“Can we eat first?”   
  
Jensen let the familiar treble of Tristan’s voice seep into him.  _Ackles, you big stupid sucker._    
  
Ten minutes later, Jensen had fixed him some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which Tristan downed with such velocity it made Jensen afraid he was going to get sick all over his brand new kitchen counter. But Tristan seemed fine. He clearly hadn’t eaten this well in a while. So completely engrossed was he with his plate that he didn’t notice Jensen watching him intently all that time.   
  
When the food was gone, every last drop and crumb of it, Tristan wiped at his lips with the back of his filthy hand, and Jensen tried not to grimace. He’d made Tristan wash his hands in the kitchen sink but hadn’t managed to do a good job, and Jensen hadn’t pushed.   
  
"Do you want anything else?"  
  
“Do you still smoke?”   
  
Jensen shook his head in full view of his guest. Already the punk was making himself comfortable and demanding stuff, like it was all hunky dory between two long lost friends. Still, he pulled out his pack of Marlboros and offered Tristan one. They both lit up and Jensen got up to go to the balcony, gesturing at Tristan to follow. Tristan followed quietly, staying a few feet away from Jensen again.   
  
A couple minutes of peace and quiet followed, both men lost in their own thoughts. Jensen had finally adjusted (or resigned) his olfactory system to the putrid reek. He wondered what was going on in Tristan's mind. The man kept looking down at the holed socks on his gargantuan feet, trying not to shiver too visibly. Jensen threw his cigarette away.   
  
“Come on, Tristan, let’s go inside.”   
  
“My name is Jared.”   
  
Jensen halted. The homeless man swallowed and dragged at his cigarette one last time before stubbing it in an ash tray.   
  
“Jared Tristan Padalecki.”   
  
“…”   
  
“The c-cops would have had an easier time tracking me down if they knew my real name. So, if you decide to turn me in, or… or if you have called them already...”   
  
Jensen took one menacing step closer. “What makes you think I’d call the cops?”   
  
Jared stammered. “I-It’s fine, I w-won’t fight it.”   
  
Jensen ground his teeth and a couple seconds later, he turned away from Tris- Jared, and started to go back inside.   
  
“I’m going to run a bath for you, Jared Tristan Pada-whatever. You stink.”   
  
  


*******  
  
  
**[iv]  
**  
**_Jensen, 7th November 2009._ **  
  


Jensen made Jared stand in one corner of his gigantic bathroom while he turned the water faucets on and upturned a whole bottle of cleansing foam into the bath tub. As they waited for the water to fill, Jensen screened Jared from head to toe.   
  
“You should hit the shower first. You’re not lining my marble tub with your grime.”   
  
Jared didn’t protest; simply started to take off his clothes right where he stood. If Jensen’s first instinct was to turn away, out of decency or whatever, he curbed it. Well-deserved retribution and shit. Funnily enough either Jared agreed, or he had no qualms being buck naked in front of Jensen.   
  
He stripped out of his three pairs of socks first, followed by his flimsy brown sweater, one shirt and two ragged undershirts, and then he started to fold them reverently. He looked around for a good (or maybe safe) spot to place them and decided the nearest corner of the bathroom would do. Then he undid a knot of what looked like fifty-year old nylon cords used as a belt to keep his jeans up. Jensen watched, morbidly mesmerized, as a new patch of flesh was exposed little by little on Jared’s thin frame. He wondered who amongst that merry band of thieves got to keep the proceeds; sure as hell didn’t look like Jared got anything.   
  
His ribs were starkly evident beneath the pale, almost bluish skin, the dark green of his veins lined his hands from the dirty fingernails all the way up to his bony shoulders. And once the jeans and the tattered boxers came off Jensen found the hip bones just as pronounced as the ribs. And his genitals, the shaft was dark and shriveled and yet… Jensen couldn’t take his eyes off it.   
  
Calmly, completely oblivious (or maybe not) to the close scrutiny he was being subjected to, Jared stood with his head bowed, as he continued to fold his precious clothes. Jensen got up, walked over and tried to take the jeans from him.   
  
“These could use a wash. Here, let me –”   
  
But Jared didn’t let go. Their eyes met, and for the first time since Jared came into his apartment, Jensen saw something other than resignation in his eyes.   
  
“Relax. You’ll get them back.”   
  
Jared let go, reluctantly, and folded his arms, for the first time looking self-conscious, as if he’d only just realized how very naked he was. Jensen opened a glass cabinet to pull a spare toothbrush out, and placed it by the sink.   
  
“Brush your teeth, a couple times at  _least_. Then go hit the shower. I’ll be right back.”   
  
Jared did as he was told, stepping into the shower stall when Jensen stepped out the bathroom to go to where his washer-dryer unit stood. Ten minutes later, he got back to find Jared still standing under the hot water, steam fogging up the glass from the inside. Jensen went to the balcony and lit up a cigarette to kill time. He let another ten minutes or so pass and came back in with the intention to turn off the bath tub faucets; then give Jared as much time as he needed. God knew how long it’d been since he’d had a decent wash.   
  
He stepped through the door and halted. The shower was turned off, the stall door was open. And there was Jared, crouching inside the stall with a couple of sponges in his hand, scrubbing the floor.   
  
Jensen couldn’t help but feel queasy with guilt. “Leave it. The cleaning guys will get it.”   
  
Jared, who’d jumped violently at the sound of Jensen’s voice, now stood up on shaking legs and exited the stall but not before anxiously turning to look at the copious amounts of dirt still circling the drain.   
  
“Get in here.” Jensen nodded towards the tub, and Jared complied, quietly, again. But he didn’t stay that way very long.   
  
“Cold,” he grumbled, as he pulled his legs up to his chest, bony knees jutting out of the water.   
  
Jensen glared at the back of Jared’s head as he turned the hot water faucet again and let it run. The kid obviously liked it  _boiling_  hot, or maybe that’s what it took to get rid of the chill settled deep in his bones after months (or more) of living on the streets of New York. Jensen didn’t want to feel too sympathetic. Instead he picked up his bottle of shampoo and handed it over roughly.   
  
“Wash your hair first,” he said curtly, then walked over to his mirror cabinet and pulled a couple of razors and shaving cream out.   
  
“Then I want you to shave the rest of your body, everything, face to toes.”   
  
Jared looked up at him in question.   
  
“You still owe me a painting.”   
  
Jared didn’t look away.   
  
“And I want you nude this time.”   
  
“…”   
  
“Don’t worry, I  _am_  going to pay you. Fifty dollars an hour, I think that’s more than fair, don’t you?”   
  
He waited for signs of distress or some token of protest, hoped even. None came.   
  
“So, do we have a deal, or what?”   
  
Jared looked down at the bottle of shampoo in his hands and nodded subtly.   
  
“Awesome. Come on out whenever you’re ready. You know where the studio is.”   
  
Jensen started to close the door behind him gently, but decided against it. Maybe it was just his imagination playing tricks on his ears but he could swear he heard whispered words he didn’t quite believe, or maybe he didn’t want to.   
  
_“It’s the least I can do.”  
_  
  


*******

  
  
Jensen went to his balcony and lit up another cigarette, psyched and teeming with excessive (nervous) energy. He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe himself.   
  
Here they were, back to where and how it all started. Jensen couldn’t believe he was actually harboring a fugitive under the same roof he’d committed (or at least helped commit) a heinous crime under, against Jensen himself.   
  
“What are you doing, you stupid fool?!?”   
  
He headed for the studio and changed into his work-shirt, the gray one splattered with paint. Pulled out a fresh canvas and found his box of charcoals, resolutely forcing himself to stop wondering about his ( _and_  Jared’s) motives. For now, he was going to milk this curious happenstance for all it was worth and get the damn painting done once and for all… the painting that had his muse blocked for two and a half years.   
  
There was a short knock on the door and Jensen looked up, at  _Tristan_. With his face clean-shaven and that exquisite Slavic jawline visible at last, he seemed more the boy that Jensen remembered, only older but not by much. Tristan…  _Jared_  wore a white bath robe and stood by the door, hugging himself. Jensen gestured with an index finger, and Jared stepped in.   
  
“You remember what to do.”   
  
“You mean… the same spot?”   
  
“Where else?”   
  
Jared walked to the full length floor-to-ceiling glass windows showcasing the gorgeous Manhattan skyline at twilight. The floor was darker this time, shinier on account of being new. Jensen couldn’t help but gasp silently when Jared dropped the robe, his back turned towards Jensen. The pale alabaster of his endless expanse of skin, in stark and aesthetically pleasing contrast to the dark floor, still managed to capture his fascination like nothing else had in a very long time.   
  
“Lie down,” he ordered and Jared complied. Jensen picked up and removed the discarded robe from his frame of view. He then lowered himself to his knees beside Jared and raised a hand towards his face.   
  
Jared flinched, hard.   
  
“Relax.” Jensen rasped, thinking to himself how twistedly rich this was.  _He’s the one afraid of ME._    
  
He pushed the still dripping strands of hair back from Jared’s face, tucking a few behind his ears, smoothing some others back over the top of his head. Jared’s eyes followed every movement of his hands suspiciously, but remained largely expressionless. They were calmer tonight, resigned, dark with emotions incomprehensible to Jensen. They irked the fucking hell out of him.   
  
Calmly enough himself, he walked back to his easel and picked up the charcoal. But the first few strokes trembled as did his hands. And it dawned on him – maybe it wasn’t this city or this apartment he needed to come back to. Maybe it was  _Jared_ that he needed to come back to paint.   
  
Then again, maybe this was all just one big coincidence and he was just over-thinking it.   
  
The next time he looked up at Jared, it was just like the very first time Tristan had posed for him. As if nothing had changed. No tragedy, no betrayal, no heartbreak had ever happened in this house. And it was all just a dream, a creepy hallucination, all in Jensen’s mind.  _This_  was the real deal; time rewound by twenty nine months. This was how it was always supposed to be.   
  
For a second, Jensen even actually believed it.   
  
  
   
  



	3. Chapter 3

**[v]**  
  
**_Jensen, 7th November 2009._**  

  
  
Jensen worked for three hours, pretty much non-stop, pausing once in a while to flex his drawing hand. Months of physical therapy had restored his broken bones but the deftness of his fingers wasn’t quite what it used to be. At eight in the evening, no longer able to remain heartless to Jared lying in the same position on the floor all this time, Jensen decided to take a break.   
  
Dinner was a quick and light affair. Jensen heated up some leftover lasagna and tossed a great salad to go with it. They complemented the meal with a couple of Coronas, followed by a cigarette out on the terrace. All that time, Jared stayed dressed in the bathrobe because his clothes were still in the dryer.   
  
And they barely said a word to each other.   
  
Silence never did bother Jensen. He’d never been much of a talker to begin with. He felt no need to opine, to be heard, or be proven right, no inclination to expend energy expressing thoughts or emotions he would much rather save for his canvas. In a group, he was most comfortable just kicking back and listening, sometimes not even that, and zoning out instead, lulled by nothing more than the sounds of a loved one  _breathing_  beside him.  
  
So yeah, Jared was, in fact, ideal company far as he was concerned – quiet, undemanding, unassuming, but here.  _Still here_.   
  
After dinner, they went to the studio and Jared disrobed and lay back down again. Two hours later, Jensen had discarded a couple of rough starts and was on his third attempt. Something about Jared… nothing he drew, no matter how he approached it, nothing seemed to match up to the intriguing 'unusualness' of Jared. Those awkward, somewhat crooked lines of Jared’s body, like he hadn’t stopped growing, just momentarily stunted by scars of violence and malnutrition… they were possibly the second hardest thing Jensen had ever had to capture in paint.   
  
The first were those damn eyes.  
  
Meanwhile, Jared lay perfectly still, not fidgeting, not complaining, only blinking now and then or surreptitiously licking his parched lips.   
  
“You stiff?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You need a break?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Guess you’re used to it, huh?”  
  
“Used to what?”  
  
“Staying still, not moving, like you’ve done all month.”  _Outside my apartment in the freezing cold._  
  
Jared didn’t respond, just rubbed his cheek pressed into the floor back and forth against the wooden surface. Jensen stood up and wiping his hands off on a rag, he stalked off to the kitchen to get himself a Perrier. He figured Jared would make use of the reprieve as he saw fit in the mean time. But when he got back he found Jared in exactly the same position that he’d left him in.  
  
“Sonofa…” he hissed and went to Jared. “Get up.”  
  
Jared looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, like he might just be starting to get sick of being ordered around. But he seemed to suppress the urge instantly and got himself into a kneeling position.   
  
He was  _kneeling_ , naked, right in front of a standing Jensen.  
  
Jensen cursed under his breath.   
  
He held the bottle of slightly sparkling water out to Jared’s lips, and the boy craned upwards ever so slightly to reach it. He drank deeply, long eyelashes falling shut as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. When he was done, he withdrew a little, allowing Jensen to pull the bottle back and take a gulp himself. Jared’s lips were red, glistening with the moisture, and droplets of water started to trickle down one side of his mouth down to his neck. Jensen reflexively reached out for it, noticing Jared wasn’t flinching from his touch anymore, catching a stray drop on the tip of his index finger, and rubbing it back into and across the soft lips. Lips that automatically fell open under his ministrations.  
  
That was the moment he looked into Jared’s eyes, and saw the same heat and longing he’d seen in there once before. Part of him was almost angered to see it – did Jared really think it would be that easy? That he could just waltz in here and pick up where they left off after everything he did?   
  
He grabbed the boy’s hair with one hand and kissed him then, furiously, falling to his knees in front of Jared and holding his head with both hands, immobilizing him as he plundered the offered mouth. He was still surprised when Jared’s hands came up to rest on his shoulders, pulling the older man closer to himself.   
  
“Is this what you came for?” Jensen demanded, not kindly at all.   
  
Jared just dove back into the kiss, avoiding a response or maybe the kiss was his response. Jensen slid his hands down Jared’s back to his narrow waist and finally his butt, cupping and squeezing the cheeks with one hand each. Jared kept clawing at the artist’s shoulders, neck, and stubbled face. And then he boldly grabbed Jensen by the back of his head and pulled him deeper into the kiss.   
  
The apartment melted away around them. All that seemed to be left in its place was decades of suppressed desperation bursting to the fore. And along with it came lust, scorching hot, unbounded, unbelievably limitless.   
  
One thing led to another and soon Jensen was pushing Jared backwards, forcing him on his back on the floor. Jensen continued to suck on Jared’s tongue like his life depended on it while Jared spread his legs and allowed Jensen in between them. One hand traveled downwards to the quivering navel, circling it, making Jared shudder into the kiss. Jensen pushed his fingers downwards, into the peach fuzz left behind on his groin after two runs of the razor. Blatantly ignoring the rapidly stiffening erection and the tightening balls, the fingers crept down further seeking the orifice underneath. Jared pulled out of the kiss and gasped.   
  
“You’re so tight,” Jensen murmured, as he forced one finger through after a bit of a struggle. “This… is this… are you a…?”  
  
“No,” Jared blushed as he confessed his lack of virginity. “Just out of pra-practice.”  
  
Jensen stood up, pretending not to notice the sudden falling of Jared’s face at his actions. “Be right back.”  
  
And he started walking before his resolve broke. It’d be a kind of revenge to take Jared dry, make him bleed and feel but a small fraction of the physical hurt and pain Jensen had suffered. But Jensen couldn’t bring himself to do that, he just couldn’t.   
  
That didn’t mean he didn’t still feel vindictive.   
  
He stopped at the door and turned around. And then he started walking back. “Stand up.”  
  
Jared, who was still panting, got up slowly without argument. He didn’t utter a word as Jensen took his arm and went willingly as Jensen pulled him towards the mahogany desk that stood in a corner. If Jared knew what was about to come next, he didn’t let it show. Jensen pushed him down, bending his long body across a long edge of the table, kept a hand pressed into the middle of the model’s back and waited.   
  
Jared turned away, refusing to look at Jensen. But apart from that, he gave no other reaction.  
  
_Good._  “Stay,” Jensen grunted.   
  
A couple minutes later, Jensen returned with lube and condoms, once again to find Jared in the same humiliating position he’d left him in – prostrate over the desk. It gave him a sense of sadistic satisfaction even as he chided himself for being a total jerk. He decided to compensate for it by thoroughly preparing him instead. Jensen lifted a giant dollop of the water-based lube with two neatly manicured fingers and spread open the pale ass cheeks with the other hand.   
  
Jared barely stirred at the first sensations, the cold finger pushing through the very tight ring of muscle. But his composure didn’t last too long.  
  
“So you do know how to fidget.” Jensen snorted, when Jared started to whimper and wiggle around the fingers impatiently, first two, then three, inside his ass.   
  
“Just hurry, please…”  
  
Jensen continued to take his time, and not just because the orifice was super-tight. Jared grunted and writhed and reached out to palm his own aching hard-on, but Jensen batted his hand away. He wasn’t sure who he was teasing and torturing more, Jared or himself. And when he couldn’t take it anymore, he undid his jeans and pulled himself out, pumping the shaft with a lubed hand until he was weeping pre-cum. Soon after rolling up a condom he sank into Jared, moving slowly at first, then thrusting all the way through until he was seated deeply within the slender ass.   
  
“Ahh,” Jared moaned, banging his forehead into the desk, expressing his helplessness while his impaler continued to stand frustratingly still behind him. It pleased Jensen considerably.  
  
“God, I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he muttered, not really intending to say it out loud but the harm was done. Jared stilled, but did not comment. And then Jensen started to move.  
  
He pounded Jared’s ass at a fast and rough pace, in no mood to take it slow or leisurely. What he needed was release, frantic and right-the-hell-now. Jared, to his credit, moved well, pushing back against Jensen’s forward thrusts to take him in deeper and tighter every time. He also rotated his hips ever so slightly in an effort to get his own sweet spot grazed every now and then, as if he expected Jensen to not give a damn anyway. Jensen bit his lip, decided to not be so selfish after all.   
  
He angled every third or so thrust right into Jared’s prostate gland, making him shake and whimper with insanely intense, pleasure-ridden agony. He also took Jared’s shaft in hand and fisted it to the rhythm of his own thrusts. They came together, almost, Jensen teasing the climax out of Jared with a fingertip pressed into the cock’s tip, Jared in turn convulsing around Jensen, pushing him over the edge.   
  
It was erratic and dirty and almost cathartic in its crudeness, and it was over all too soon. For the few minutes that followed, Jared stayed slumped over the table, and Jensen threw his head back with his mouth open, drawing rapid breaths, his heart pumping away like that of a racehorse.  
  
“Your desk…” Jared whispered.  
  
Jensen couldn’t care less, but that’s not what he said. “You will clean it up, obviously.”  
  
When Jensen pulled out and re-dressed himself, Jared straightened up and turned around, lube trickling down the insides of his thighs uncomfortably. He pressed them together, watching dazedly as Jensen got rid of the evidence. His face was flushed and his eyes were wild, both with pleasure and some kind of anxiety. Night had fallen outside, the soft hum of traffic eighteen floors below now completely mute.   
  
“Are you going to throw me out?”  
  
Jensen started. How long did he think he’d invited Jared up for exactly?   
  
“My painting’s not done yet.”   
  
He turned away, not ready to face Jared’s questioning glances yet. Instead he went to his couch beside the easel and pulled it open to turn it into a bed. He used to use it often, once upon a time, just to rest his eyes for awhile in the middle of working on one of his paintings. Jared could sleep here for now, he figured.  
  
“Can I sleep in your room?”  
  
Jensen snorted. “You’re kidding me right?”  
  
“That way you can do me again, if you want.”  
  
Jensen just frowned, thoroughly confused.   
  
Jared took a step closer. “You can fuck me all night.”  
  
It was the deadpan voice and the completely straight face that threw Jensen off. It didn’t sound like Jared  _wanted_  to be fucked all night, no. Jensen spotted a disturbing hint of desperation in Jared’s eyes that promptly turned him away.   
  
“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.”   
  
He pulled out a comforter from the nearest cabinet and flung it carelessly over the makeshift bed. He also found a spare t-shirt and boxers (also splattered with paint) in the same cabinet, which he placed on one corner of the bed for Jared.  
  
“I don’t want to be worried about getting strangled or stabbed to death in my sleep. So I will be locking my door too. Just so you know.”  
  
Jared swallowed, his eyes calm and resigned once again. Not outraged, not shocked, just blank.   
  
“And there is nothing valuable in this house, except for the electronics in the living room, I guess. Take ‘em and leave if you want, just keep it down. I get cranky if I don’t get my eight hours of sleep.”  
  
He didn’t turn to look at Jared’s reaction. Nothing was going to ruin this moment of poetic justice for him, especially not that haunted look on Jared’s face that Jensen was sure could undo him completely.   
  
“Good night.”   
  
And he walked away, leaving Jared still standing by the mahogany desk, still naked.  
  
  
  
*******  
  
  
**[vi]**  
  
**_Jensen, 8th November, 2009._**    


Well after midnight, sleep continued to evade Jensen. He tossed and turned, flipped his pillow over again and again, threw away the blankets and comforters, took a long hot shower.   
  
Nothing worked.   
  
His mind was a mess of conflicting emotions – guilt with vengeful satisfaction, giddiness with nervousness, relief with trepidation. He wondered if he was going to find out this night or next morning what a colossal mistake he’d made inviting an apparently homeless, probably (or maybe not) retired con into his home,  _again_. He reached out with one hand to check the .45 in the top shelf of his bedside drawer. The one he bought soon after he’d gotten back up on his feet again after the assault. For protection, of course. Back in Texas, he’d practically grown up around guns. Everyone in the extended Ackles family had trained to shoot at one point or another in their lives.   
  
Jensen prayed he wouldn’t need to use the damn thing, especially not against Jared.   
  
He finally managed to drift away around three and got about four hours of sleep. The next morning he unlocked his door and cautiously stepped out of his room, already showered and dressed in a pair of black-and-gray sweats to get another (hopefully) productive day started. The living room looked exactly as it did the night before. Nothing was missing. He tiptoed his way to the kitchen, counting the knives in their holder, relieved to find none missing. Then he looked back at his entertainment center – the Bose speakers were by far the most expensive investment he’d made, and they were still there.   
  
Jensen craned his neck this way and that, ears pricked and ready to pick up any untoward noises that didn’t belong in the apartment. Once he was satisfied that everything was in place, he trudged barefoot, quietly, into the studio, wondering if he was going to find the homeless boy home or not.   
  
_Home_? What the hell made him think that?  
  
His rambling thoughts came to a halt when he found the bed empty... and Jared sleeping on the hardwood floor beside it. Oh well. At least he used the comforter. Jensen felt ridiculously pleased and told his thumping heart to can it already. Quietly, he closed the door behind him and headed to the kitchen to put on the coffee.   
  
Twenty minutes later Jared came out, dressed in the clothes Jensen loaned him the night before, head full of sleep-mussed hair, wobbling on a pair of still shaky legs.   
  
“Coffee?”  
  
Jared nodded and came around to sit at the kitchen counter, continuing to rub his eyes open in that atrociously adorable way. Jensen looked away, shaking the insanely strong urge to smile.  
  
“Why did you sleep on the floor?”  
  
Jared shrugged. “Not used to soft surfaces, I guess.”  
  
Jensen bit his lip. He poured out two mugs of black coffee, slid one towards Jared along with the jars of cream and sugar. Jared ignored the cream but picked out four cubes of sugar and dropped it into his coffee. Jensen licked his lips, not wanting to know what that tasted like.  
  
“So how did you know I was back in town?”  
  
Jared took a sip of his coffee first. “It was in the Chelsea Art.”  
  
“The journal?” Somehow Jensen found it hard to imagine a homeless man shelling out money to buy an  _art_  magazine, until he remembered circulation was free in the tri-state area. Maybe Jared really was keeping tabs on Jensen’s whereabouts all this time?  
  
“Paper keeps you warm.”   
  
Or not.  
  
“Okay. What’s with the hobo gig these days?”  
  
Jared shrugged again, but he didn’t reply.  
  
“Seriously, what are you doing out there on the streets, Tris… Jared?”  
  
“Would you prefer I was still breaking and entering instead?”  
  
Jensen glared at Jared, who just glared right back.  
  
“Did you go to school?”  
  
“Everyone goes to school,” Jared took a loud slurpy gulp of his coffee, avoiding eye contact.  
  
“Did  _you_  finish high school?”  
  
“…”  
  
Jensen didn’t need a response. He just leaned against the counter, studying the lowered head beside him. “There are jobs you could do, you know. It’s New York for Christ’s sake.”  
  
“…”  
  
“I suppose you’re not going to tell me why you dropped out of school. And what you were doing hanging out with those  _punks_?”  
  
Jared looked up, eyes wide with curiosity. “What makes you think I wasn’t one of them?”  
  
_Because I know_ , Jensen thought instinctively.  _But I’ve been wrong before._    
  
He didn’t respond, just continued to sip at his coffee.  
  
Jared sighed, slumping forward onto the counter. “I-I followed a guy.”  
  
Jensen snorted, Jared glared, but he carried on. “From San Antonio. His name was Chad Murray, and he was… cute, and dangerous, and wild… not a nice guy at all, really.” Jared drawled disdainfully before looking back down into his lap.   
  
Jensen couldn’t believe the rush of empathy that surged through him at those words. Guess they were both victims of their own iniquitous love interests.  
  
“You loved this guy?”  
  
“I  _thought_  I did.”  
  
“Let me guess, the guy takes off, leaving you behind with nothing but a bunch of hooligans for homies?”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
‘Why didn’t you go back home?”  
  
Jared still wouldn’t look up. “Too proud, I guess.”  
  
“You ever try getting a real job? Or was the lure of a glamorous life of crime too tempting to resist?”  
  
Jared shrugged again, but didn’t comment, which was answer enough. The abrupt silence made Jensen realize they needed a new topic of conversation, if one at all. He finished his coffee and started toward his room.  
  
“Do you want to get out for a bit?”  
  
“Are you throwing me out?”  
  
Jensen halted mid-step. Funny that Jared kept asking him that, while the thought hadn’t yet occurred to Jensen once.   
  
“I was thinking more on the lines of a Sunday brunch. Unless you want to stay in? I vote out.”  
  
“Uh, okay. Can I use the shower?”  
  
“Sure. And the bath too.”  
  
Jared frowned. “I don’t need another bath.”  
  
Jensen looked him up and down and smirked, sniffling disapprovingly. “Yes, you do.”  
  
It was the longest conversation Jensen had had in ages. He pretended to himself it was no big deal.  
  
  
*******

  
  
  
After Jared came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, he found Jensen waiting in the bedroom for him. Jensen handed the younger man his newly washed jeans, battered and torn as they were, but cleaner. He scratched the back of his head.  
  
“Uh, the rest…”  
  
Jared’s mouth fell open.  
  
“Sorry, they didn’t make it through the second rinse cycle.”  
  
Jared’s face turned to stone but his eyes were tearing up already.   
  
Jensen panicked. “Hey, it’s cool, alright? Here, take some of my clothes.” Jensen led Jared to his closet and threw it open. “Whatever you need.”  
  
Good thing the jeans survived because no way in hell would any of Jensen’s own pants fit him.  
  
“Take whatever shirts or cardigans you need, oh and here’s a jacket that I think will look good on you.”  
  
Jared still looked seriously upset. Jensen could only imagine how long he’d been wearing those clothes to have grown so hopelessly attached to them. He felt sorry for Jared, even though he was trying very hard not to show it. Or  _feel_  it even.  
  
“Guess I owe you a bunch of clothes. Let’s go shopping, how about that? Huh?”  
  
Jared stared at him for a few seconds then just crossed his arms and looked sheepish. “You don’t have to do that.”  
  
“It’s no problem,” Jensen cleared his throat. “I’ll adjust it against the money I owe you for modeling for me. Cool?”  
  
Jared shrugged which Jensen took to mean affirmative in this case. He handed Jared a thick blue and white flannel shirt along with a white full-sleeved undershirt. He also took out a jacket, the smallest size he owned that no longer fit, and placed it on the bed.   
  
“Uh, you can get dressed here. I’ll… uh… yeah.”  
  
Jensen quickly stepped out, feeling stupid and like an outsider in his own bedroom.  
  
  
*******

  
  
Breakfast was at a quaint little place called Sarabeth’s Bakery in Chelsea market. It took about ten minutes to walk down to it, and throughout Jared fidgeted, eyes darting this way and that, as he walked two steps behind Jensen at all times. If Jensen thought he’d be fine once they got inside the café, he was dead wrong. Slumped in his chair as low as he could go, Jared seemed even more self-conscious, looking thinner and paler than ever in the over-sized clothes he wore.   
  
“Relax,” he tried when Jared wouldn’t stop jiggling his knees under the table. “No one’s looking at you.”  
  
Jared gave him a look that said, ‘yes they are’, and put his hands on his knees as if that would help his nervous tick, which it did, for about three seconds.   
  
Jensen rolled his eyes and looked around. Like anyone in Manhattan would have time for anyone else but themselves. Just for this, he didn’t miss Richardson so much. There, everyone was in everyone else’s business all the time.   
  
This café was a place he and Matt used to frequent a lot. Which reminded him: Jensen hadn’t tried calling him since yesterday – since he brought Jared home.   
  
“Excuse me, be right back.”  
  
Jensen stepped out, leaving Jared alone at their table. He stood outside on the street and tried Matt’s number again. As always, it went straight to voice mail.  
  
“Hey, me again, your friendly neighborhood stalker.” Jensen tried to laugh. “I just wanted you to know that… I, I’m painting again. That’s right – my muse is back, yay me…” he turned to look through the glass window at Jared inside.   
  
He couldn’t tell Matt about Jared, not yet. Even though he wanted to so much, like a piece of good news one craved to share with a close friend. Too bad Matt, or anyone in their right state of mind, wouldn’t think of this as anything but bad news, horribly disturbing institutionalize-Jensen-now news. So he rambled on instead about useless shit until, as usual, the service cut him off.   
  
When he went back inside, Jared looked up at him with mild accusation in his eyes.  _You left me alone_. Jensen sent a scowl back, completely devoid of the sympathy he couldn’t help but feel inside.  
  
Breakfast was an extremely tense affair. Was it Jensen’s intention to make Jared feel so uncomfortable, so exposed? Not really. And after awhile, Jensen couldn’t take it anymore. "Do you want to leave?"   
  
Jared shrugged noncommittally.  
  
"Fine, let me just finish my coffee and we'll go."  
  
"..."  
  
“Are you afraid someone will recognize you and report you to the cops?”  
  
“They had my sketch.”  
  
Jensen snorted. “No they had  _my_  sketch, of you – the one that was half-done and half-faced and distorted beyond recognition. And you were blond then, shorter hair, baby fat on your cheeks, no description of body type, no height, not even any eye color. Besides, New Yorkers have very short memories. Don’t worry so much.”  
  
“They might not remember me. But they haven’t forgotten you.”  
  
Jensen snorted. “Trust me. They care about artists even less than con-artists.”  
  
Unless there were any art publication paparazzi hanging about these parts this time of the day, there was no chance of them being spotted or clicked. But yeah, in the off-chance that they did get clicked, speculations about Jensen’s new companion would be inevitable. He looked up at Jared again.   
  
He was so different from the Tristan Jensen remembered. His face was gaunt, his hair dark and reaching his shoulders. No wonder he’d been inspired to go darker with the portrait this time. Jared looked very eerily like a fallen angel depicted in old Judeo-Christian paintings. And Jensen was a post-modernist, for God’s sakes.   
  
“We gotta cut your hair,” he grunted, pretending to focus on stirring his coffee.   
  
Either Jared felt no attachment to his long tresses, or he’d really restrained himself. Not even a peep from him.   
  
“What’s your true color anyway?”  
  
That was when Jared looked up, his eyes gleaming with hurt or something. Jensen cleared his throat. “I meant your hair color.”  
  
Jared looked away, embarrassed. “This is my true color,” he mumbled, repeating the same mistake Jensen made, maybe on purpose. “Dark brown.”  
  
Jensen’s eyes trailed from the head full of unruly chestnut hair down to the trembling red lips. Somewhere along the line, this kid had learned the power of his breathtaking looks and actively used it to manipulate and dupe folks. In that moment, all sympathy vanished, replaced with just a clawing pang to hurt. Not physically, no. Just to leave Jared fretting a little while longer.   
  
“I'm in the mood for Belgian waffles. How about you?”   
  
  
*******

  
  
After a  _long_  breakfast, Jensen headed towards Chelsea Market. Jared continued to walk a couple steps behind him, and Jensen let him. He led the way to the first clothing store which happened to be on their way, one that Jared was so not willing to step inside.  
  
“I know this other place we can get clothes on 8th Avenue.”   
  
The Salvation Army store.  
  
“That place is for folks who can’t afford first-hand clothes. You’re earning hundred bucks an hour. Stop being such a tightwad.”  
  
“I didn’t ask you to pay me, you know.”  
  
“…”  
  
“I don’t want your money.”  
  
Jensen huffed, not sure how to respond. It felt stupid (and weak) to admit to Jared that he really considered it fair trade. Jared was helping him get his muse back, and that deserved fair remuneration.   
  
“Alright, fine. Maybe I just wanna be Richard Gere to your Julia Roberts. I love that movie, and yes I know, that’s  _so gay_. Come on now.”   
  
He didn’t wait for a response and started walking in through the showroom doors, pausing only at the sound of the words Jared mumbled next. “Richard Gere married Julia Roberts in that movie.”  
  
Jensen turned to narrow his eyes at Jared. The little shit had the gall to smirk at him.  
  
“That’s because Julia Roberts was a highly skilled cocksucker,” Jensen smirked back, and watching the hot blush rising to Jared’s cheeks was reward enough.   
  
He turned back towards the store and walked in, Jared following behind, no choice left in the matter.  
  
By the time they were done, Jared had two pairs of jeans, four shirts and four t-shirts, two leather belts, a dozen different sorts of underwear, two pairs of boots and sneakers and six pairs of socks, a pair of pajamas and track pants, and two warm jackets that would safely see him through the worst of winter. Jensen even bought him a bottle of cologne that Jared griped about louder than anything else.   
  
He tried to thank Jensen at the end of the day, lugging all his shopping bags in both hands and walking two steps behind Jensen as usual. Meanwhile Jensen held just one small carry bag with two economy-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Sure he liked Jared’s long hair, but already it was starting to take a toll on his bathroom supplies.   
  
“If you really want to thank me, I’ll settle for one true answer.”  
  
Jared didn’t respond immediately. A minute later, he licked his lips. “Anything.”  
  
“When you said you were twenty-one back then… you lied, didn’t you?”  
  
“…”  
  
“How old are you, really?”  
  
Jared barely mumbled, not looking up at Jensen once. “I turn twenty-one next July.”  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**[vii]**  
  
**_Jensen, 8th November, 2009._**  

  
  
  
Jensen abruptly halted in the middle of the street.   
  
“WHAT!”  
  
He frowned so hard, his forehead started to hurt. If Jared was turning twenty-one in July 2010 then back in 2007 when they met he must have been–  
  
“I cannot fucking believe you were not even legal!”   
  
“I was like nineteen days shy.”  
  
“That doesn’t fucking matter!! I could have gone to jail for making you pose for me, do you understand that?”  
  
“I guess we’re both delinquents then, huh?”  
  
“…”  
  
Jensen did not find it amusing, even as he spotted a devious little smile threatening to break out on Jared’s face. He wanted to kick something,  _hard_. He wanted to stop biting his lip and let out an exasperated scream bubbling up his throat, with a surprisingly genuine fit of laughter tailgating right after it.   
  
He settled for glaring and stomping his way out of the market.  
  
They made one last pit-stop: Jensen’s usual haunt for picking up art supplies – canvases and oils and the like.   
  
“You go ahead, I’ll wait here.” Jared said, digging his hands in his jeans pockets outside. Jensen for a moment wondered what the kid might be up to, then pretending he didn’t care either way, he shrugged and went in.  
  
“Well, if it isn’t my best-est customer ever!” The girl at the cash register greeted him as warmly as she always did.   
  
Genevieve was a part-time art student herself so they actually had lots to talk about.  _Too bad you’re gay_ , she’d mumbled once, blushing and apologizing immediately for the inappropriateness of it. Jensen had taken it as a compliment and promptly forgotten all about it.   
  
“You again?” Jensen quipped. “Why haven’t you graduated from school yet?”  
  
“You’re one to talk, Mr. Duke University dropout!”  
  
That made Jensen laugh and they bantered on for a few minutes, Jensen rattling out his list of requirements and Gen collecting and ringing them up. Jared, in the meantime, tired of waiting in the cold, quietly slipped in but hung back at the aisle closest to the exit, keeping his gaze away from Jensen at all times.  
  
Gen whistled low under her breath, but loud enough for Jensen to look up at her in question. With a practiced jerk of her sexy eyebrows, she gestured towards the newcomer. “Just so we’re clear, I saw him first.”  
  
Something tugged at Jensen’s core, a mild but persistent prickling that rose from his gut up to the hardening veins in his neck. Gen was fixing her hair already, licking her lips moist. Jensen should have just rolled his eyes and let her be, really he should have.  
  
“Something tells me he’s not your type.”  
  
“What, you mean he’s gay?”  
  
Jensen just shrugged and Gen looked at Jared again. They were whispering, obviously, so as not to weird the object of their attention out.   
  
“No way, not with that scrawny face, and that bird’s nest of a hairdo? All gay men I know take really, really good care of themselves, dress sharp, are prettier than most women.”  
  
_Stereotypical._  “Why, thank you.”  
  
“Oh, you know what I mean.” Gen winked at Jensen quickly before turning to Jared again. “In comparison, this one’s way too… too…”  
  
“Too what?” Jensen asked, his curiosity piqued.  
  
“Umm… gauche.”  
  
“Gauche?”  
  
“Gauche. Inelegant. Not like you at all.”  
  
“And yet I see you raring to jump his bones right here and now.”  
  
Gen smiled coyly, checking Jared out from head to toe. “What can I say, sweetie, I like ‘em  _big_.”  
  
Jensen had heard enough. The prickling returned with a vengeance and he felt the need to mark his territory, except he was way too  _not-gauche_  for public urination, so he settled for the next best option instead.   
  
“Hey, Jared?”  
  
Gen watched, her mouth falling open, as Jared responded to Jensen’s call, looked up and walked towards the counter. Jensen stretched one arm out, and for a second, he watched both surprise and suspicion flutter across the angular face. But it didn’t break Jared’s pace and steadily he reached Jensen, allowing Jensen’s hand to rest in the small of his back and gently tug him closer.   
  
“Jared, this is Genevieve. She wanted to say hi.”  
  
The girl stuttered for a second but quickly recovered, narrowing her eyes at Jensen and accepting defeat. She offered her hand to Jared pleasantly. “Call me Gen.”  
  
Jared looked like a deer caught in headlights, wary and unsure of what he was supposed to do. He shook her hand and smiled back (tightly) before glancing at Jensen, as if for approval. Jensen’s hand slid around Jared’s waist, possessively, holding him closer than he needed to.  
  
Later, on their way back to the Vanguard, Jensen held his bags in both hands, white-knuckling around the coarse jute strings. He strode away fervently, not looking back to see if Jared was following or not. His head was a maze of accusatory questions and no answers, but more than anything he was just plain mad. At himself, at Gen, at Jared even, when technically neither did anything wrong.   
  
_What in the name of fucking hell was THAT?_

*******

  
  
They got home after sundown. Jensen dumped his bags in the studio, then shrugged out of his jacket.  
  
“I’m gonna go hit the shower,” the artist announced, after Jared followed him into the studio and set his own bunch of bags on the couch. He crouched on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands resting carelessly on top of them. He followed Jensen with his eyes as he strode back out of the studio and into his bedroom.  
  
The water felt great, petering down full force on the back of Jensen’s neck as he stood facing the shower, his head bent forward in contemplation. What the hell was he doing? He asked himself the same question over and over, in vain, because none of the answers he came up with helped. Like in a lost game of solitaire, every card he upturned was useless, and try as he might to fit them together in a pattern that made any sense, he just couldn’t. Like the whole deck of cards he’d been dealt was fucking  _wrong_. And worse, he didn’t even know how to fold.   
  
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.  
  
Over the loud whirring of his thoughts, Jensen didn’t hear the stall door opening. Panic rose when he realized there was someone behind him but before he could so much as move, a gangly pair of arms encircled him from behind.    
  
Jensen’s first reflex was to flinch and shove the intruder away. That instinct however was shockingly easy to suppress.   
  
Jared’s temple dropped to rest on the back of Jensen’s neck, and he stayed like that, perfectly still, seemingly happy to drench his clothes (Jensen’s clothes) under the torrent of hot water.  
  
“You’ve had your back turned on me all day,” the low voice whispered behind him.   
  
Jensen sighed deeply, his senses completely attuned to the pair of hands gently exploring the expanse of his chiseled chest and stomach. It was true. Jensen had gone ahead and done exactly what he’d intended not to: let his guard down around the ex-con who once almost got him killed.  
  
_The hell with it._  Jensen let his head fall back, resting on top of Jared’s behind him.  
  
“Think you’re starting to slip in your old age, maybe?”   
  
Jensen smirked. Guess the kid wanted to play. He turned around, pushing Jared’s arms away and instead gripping the sides of his face, drawing him down into a smothering kiss.   
  
“Get these off,” he grunted, clawing at the shirt on Jared’s back while Jared kicked his jeans off. Once the clothes were out of the way, Jared broke open the kiss and looked into Jensen’s eyes. There was no uncertainty there, none of the hesitation that had hounded him all day long. Just an eerie calmness, a quality of determination that Jensen wasn’t sure what to make of.   
  
Then Jared went down on his knees.   
  
Jensen gasped silently, settled his hands on the sides of Jared’s head again as Jared reverently took the semi-engorged shaft into his mouth. He opened wide and swallowed inch after hardening inch, until his nose was buried in the bush of dark blond hair at the base of Jensen’s cock.   
  
Jensen’s eyes rolled up in his sockets and his head fell back, as a hot tongue pressed against the sensitive underside. His grip around Jared’s head tightened when Jared pulled back, only to slide forward again eagerly. Jensen bit back a strangled string of curses, after all it was his first blowjob in twenty-nine months (hell yeah, he’d been counting). He started to move himself, retreating from and slamming back into Jared’s mouth with reckless abandon. He felt the exact moment in which Jared let go of the reins, letting Jensen run the show as he saw fit. Jensen fucked the willing mouth vigorously until the sharp, lust-ridden pressure gathering in his balls started to push him over the edge.  
  
He pulled back, just in the nick of time. “Stand up,” he whispered roughly, “Turn over.”  
  
Jared rested his hands on the glass door for support and spreading his endless legs while Jensen reached for the condoms and lube he kept in here behind his conditioner. Quickly dipping two fingers into the gel, he rubbed Jared’s little rosebud opening for awhile, then gently slipped two fingers inside, massaging the channel generously.   
  
“Yes, now, now.... please, damn it! Jensen, please…”  
  
Jensen tugged and teased Jared’s cock until it was dripping with precum, just as he pushed himself in firmly, at last. Matt once said he’d never known anyone who could fuck him as hard and as  _deep_  as Jensen did, and by the time they’d be done, Matt’s legs would be shaking and utterly useless for a good hour. He couldn’t wait to hear Jared whine and bitch about his shaking gargantuan legs too.   
  
It was just as rough and fast as the first time, and just as desperate and unrelenting as if they’d never get to do it again. Jared pressed his forehead into the glass, fisting himself and moaning louder than he had the night before. Every thrust, especially the ones that hit his sweet spot, was greeted with a resounding ‘ah’ or a breathless ‘oh’ or a high-pitched keening monosyllabic sound that was operatic to Jensen’s ears.  
  
Jared came first, spraying the glass door with his release. And if it weren’t for Jensen’s hands gripping his hips, his knees would have surely buckled to the watery floor. Jensen continued to thrust in and out, relishing the way Jared’s ass undulated around him, until he couldn’t sustain himself any more. He let go with a loud, guttural moan, then promptly collapsed against Jared, pushing him further into the glass wall. The other man seemed perfectly okay with being crushed and stood panting breathlessly, supporting Jensen’s dead-weight behind him.   
  
“So,” Jared rasped, after a while, rousing Jensen from the zombie state he was in. “What do you say?”  
  
“’bout what?”  
  
“My cocksucking skills?”  
  
Jensen dragged himself apart, his sated cock slipping out easily. Couldn’t believe they were still stuck on that stupid Pretty Woman reference.   
  
“Rudimentary at best,” he mumbled, cupping water from the running shower in one hand and gently dripping it into the crack of Jared’s ass. Jared shivered as Jensen’s hand wiped him clean. He spread his legs farther, as if he couldn’t get enough of Jensen touching him so intimately.   
  
“You wanna… maybe, show me how it’s done?”  
  
Jensen smirked, pulling Jared away from the glass and turned him around. “You sure you’ll be up to it so soon?”  
  
“Are  _you_? Old man?”  
  
“Is that a challenge?”  
  
“Maybe…” Jared blinked innocently.   
  
They fell into bed almost immediately, not even stopping to dry off. Jensen arranged Jared on his back and sat on his haunches, hitching Jared’s hips up onto his lap to get easy access to Jared’s crotch. And then he lowered his mouth down to the shaft at half-mast and went to town on it.   
  
It took longer this time, obviously. Jared whimpered and bunched up the bed sheet in his fists, unable to escape Jensen’s mouth, unable to squirm, given how Jensen held his hips down. With one adept little finger, Jensen kept worrying his perineum, knowing the effect it would have on Jared’s already over-sensitized nerves.   
  
“Ah, okay… God, okay! I give… ah, fuck…”  
  
Jensen laughed around the weeping member still in his mouth, the vibrations leading to a lot more creative cursing than he’d heard or even expected to hear from his model. Every sound that escaped Jared’s mouth went straight down to Jensen’s cock, and he started to fill up without once touching himself.   
  
He donned another condom and dove right back in. Placing his hands under Jared’s knees, he lifted them up and folded the boy in two, pushing down with all his weight until he was buried to the hilt inside Jared’s ass. Jensen couldn’t even begin to comprehend where this unbridled hunger for Jared came from. This mind-numbing Molotov of desire and contempt drove him to fuck Jared harder and longer than he’d fucked anyone else his entire life. The bed whined and groaned under the force of his thrusts and so did Jared, biting his lip raw, tiny droplets of sweat dribbling down his face and neck as he rode his second wave of back-breaking pleasure for the night.  
  
When they were done, and they were  _really_  done this time, Jensen collapsed on his stomach onto the bed beside Jared, head turned away from the other man. He was sweaty and hot and as the adrenaline coursing through his body slowly dissipated, his eyes started to droop with exhaustion. He could hear Jared’s rapid breathing behind him, and it made him grin almost drunkenly.  
  
“You’re gonna be the death of me, Tristan.”  
  
He didn’t realize he’d just reverted back to Jared’s alias, and he should have stopped at that. But he didn’t realize that either, not until it was too late.   
  
“This time, for sure…”   
  
Jared froze behind him, the harsh breathing pausing with an inhuman abruptness. Jensen opened his eyes but otherwise pretended to not notice. A few seconds later, Jared got out of bed as silently as he could manage, and slipped out of Jensen’s bedroom.   
  
Jensen’s first reflex was to stop him, hell, apologize even. And it wasn’t an easy instinct to suppress. But he did it anyway.  
  
  
  
*******  
  
  
**[viii]**  
  
**_Jensen, 8th November, 2009._**    
  
  
Fatigue was replaced by anxiety in a matter of minutes.   
  
Jensen tried to tell himself that he didn’t care, that Jared deserved to be taunted, and that he had every right to this… this… whatever it was Jensen was doing. He even managed some self-righteous conviction for it, for a whole nine seconds.   
  
The old grandfather clock struck seven in the evening, galvanizing him into action. He tumbled out of bed and back into the shower, standing under a deluge colder than usual until he felt his fingers wrinkling and going numb. Then he slipped into his favorite pair of jeans and a white linen shirt, finger-combed his wet hair out of his face, and stepped out (bravely) to face Jared.   
  
Jared was in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge scouring the insides looking for something to eat. Jensen couldn’t help but smile. The twenty-year old was perpetually hungry all the time.   
  
“How about we order in today?”  
  
Jared jumped, just a little bit, before turning towards Jensen. His face was blank, the way it’d been the day before, all signs of animatedness from their roll in the sack a half hour ago completely gone. He shrugged and closed the freezer door behind him before gingerly walking over to the kitchen counter.   
  
Silent treatment. Jensen could live with that, for now. At least Jared was wearing the black track pants and baby blue long-sleeved t-shirt they’d bought together. It looked good on him, Jensen noticed, trying very hard not to.  
  
He pulled the phone off its dock and started to punch in a memorized number. “I know this great Chinese place, delivers round the clock.”  
  
“Can we…?” Jared started, but didn’t complete.  
  
Jensen raised his eyebrows, pausing. “What?”  
  
Jared bit his lip and looked down at his hands, tugging at the ends of his sleeves subconsciously.  
  
“Not Chinese?”  
  
Jared shrugged, still not looking up.  
  
“Italian?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Mexican?”  
  
“…”  
  
Jensen smirked. “I know, All-American hot dog, right? No? Burgers? Steaks?”  
  
Jared just pouted and Jensen huffed, amazed the kid actually was back to making demands again. Expensive clothes he didn’t pick, snazzy new-age shoes and accessories he didn’t want, but when it came to  _food_ …  
  
“What then?”   
  
Jared fixed Jensen with a pair of freakishly lethal puppy dog eyes. Thirty minutes later, they were wrapping little portions of naan around delicious tandoori chicken and lamb roganjosh, making a grand mess and having a blast doing it. Jared especially was about as maladroit as they came but going by all the finger-licking and lip-smacking along with the sporadic laughing, neither could possibly care less. Jared liked his food  _hot_ , which wasn’t all that great news for Jensen, if they kept sharing all their meals like this.  
  
Not that they  _would_... keep sharing all their meals like this. For very long.   
  
After cleaning up, they headed to the balcony where they stood dragging on their respective cigarettes. It was a cold night, but Jared hadn’t bothered to pick up a jacket. He just stood there leaning his back against the rails, bending over backwards to look down at the city bustling beneath them. The wind blew his long hair into his face and he closed his eyes, letting the winter of Manhattan seep into his skin, welcoming it like an old friend. With those intriguing eyes closed, the rest of his face seemed almost, peaceful.  
  
“Jared…”  
  
Jared opened his eyes.  
  
“Go inside, to the studio. Strip, wait for me there.”  
  
Jared’s eyes darkened, but without a word of protest, he obeyed. After he left, Jensen lit up another cigarette and used it to appease his frayed nerve endings. Ten minutes later, he changed into his own work-shirt and went into his studio. Without acknowledging Jared’s presence or even checking to see if he’d followed his instructions, Jensen headed to the stack of open-faced shelves where he kept his art supplies. He went past the fresh canvases they got earlier that day, and pulled out the longest piece of canvas he’d bought several months ago.   
  
It was almost seven feet wide and five feet tall, yellowing at the edges from long being ignored and just sitting there gathering dust. Jensen set up two more easels and used the three to mount the giant canvas like a vast landscape. He felt Jared’s eyes following his every move curiously, and if they made Jensen self-conscious and even somewhat nervous (which of course they did), he didn’t let it show.  
  
Jared for his part stayed in position on the floor on his stomach. One arm lay folded with the loosely curled up fingers resting deceptively close to his face, almost as if he were about to kiss them. The swelling profile of his perfectly shaped ass, with the crack teasingly visible from the distance and angle Jensen stood at, threatened to distract Jensen from the job he was hell-bent on tonight. The legs stretched infinitely into the fading darkness just where the glow of the yellow overhead lamp ended. Jared’s face was turned towards the artist, of course, eyes fixed pointedly at Jensen’s.  
  
Jensen always noticed the little details. It was his job after all, what he was supposed to do. And after two days, he’d started to piece them together to form a cohesive pattern. He could now document all the colors Jared’s eyes changed with his state of mind, possibly his biggest tell, other than the sudden stiffening of his limbs when he was challenged, or hurt.    
  
Crystal clear hazel when he was calm, like when he smoked, or sat across the kitchen counter satisfied to have his fill of a warm, healthy meal not rescued from the garbage. Sea-green hazel with tiny flecks of gold when he was excited or feeling mischievous, like the time he’d ambushed Jensen in the shower. The more excited he got (like with every thrust of Jensen inside him) the bigger the flecks got. And glittering, almost metallic, golden green with just a hint of liquid accompanied the times Jensen barked an order at him. To which Jared would stiffen, as if his first instinct was to bristle and tell Jensen to go fuck himself, but he’d curb it instantly, replace it with resignation, or defeat, whichever – Jensen couldn’t be sure.   
  
Then there was the darkest of them all, Jensen wasn’t sure what to call it, or if there was a name for it at all. So he termed it… lull-before-the-storm brown. It happened when Jared looked at him, no, stared, gl _ared_  more like, wanting something intensely – maybe sex, maybe forgiveness, maybe an apology, maybe something else…  
  
It was the most enrapturing shade of them all. And it was happening right now.  
  
Call it morbid curiosity, but Jensen really wanted to know what color Jared’s eyes would be when he got angry, or scared, or maybe both. So far he’d had no such luck.

*******

  
  
  
Two hours passed in a blink, at least for Jensen they did. It took him that long to realize how long it’d really been, and this time when he looked up at Jared, he did so with amazement. The kid must be painfully stiff by now, yet he hadn’t given Jensen any excuse to remember that he was a living person pretending to be a statue, not the other way round.   
  
“I could use a smoke. Do you want one?”  
  
For half a second, Jared allowed himself to be visibly relieved. Jensen put his brushes down and lit up a cigarette. He watched as Jared rotated his shoulders to ease the tightened muscles there, kicked empty air with one cramped leg, and completely oblivious (or unconcerned) to the fact that he was still nude, walked over to where Jensen stood. He accepted a cigarette and a light from Jensen without looking up into the artist’s face. A couple of drags and the tension seemed to melt away from his face, like he’d been craving nicotine for days. Finally he looked up at Jensen and nodded, gratefully.   
  
Jensen cleared his throat and nodded towards the easel. “So what do you think?”  
  
Jared turned towards the work in progress, licking his lips. What he’d expected, or hoped for if anything at all, Jensen had no way to know. So he just watched as Jared’s back stiffened, his head bent frozen in time and space, the cigarette between Jared’s fingers forgotten.  
  
“Jared?”   
  
“I… is this me?”  
  
Jensen stood up straight, frowning a little.   
  
“That bad, huh?” He was only half-joking.  
  
Jared shifted and a quiet shudder ran through his spine. Jensen left his cigarette standing in the ashtray and reached for Jared’s bathrobe from last night. He approached the taller man slowly, and draped the robe over the tense shoulders. The action, gentle as it was, startled Jared and he remembered his cigarette. He dragged on it a couple of times, keeping his back turned to Jensen, his eyes fixed on the canvas before him.  
  
“Jared, what is it?”   
  
Jared dropped his shoulders then, craning to look at Jensen once before looking away and concentrating on the painting.   
  
“This is bullshit, man.”  
  
“…”  
  
“Whoever you’re painting, whatever this is… it’s not me.”  
  
“Why do you say that?”  
  
“Because…” Jared started and paused abruptly. He bit his lip and hugged himself, seemingly unsure how much he was  _allowed_  to say.   
  
Jensen walked up to him, anxiety clouding his eyes. “Jared, you can tell me. What’s going on?”  
  
Jared swallowed. “Okay, well, where are my scars?”  
  
“…”  
  
“This one?” Jared pointed to the side of his ribs, at what must have been a deep round-ish gash about two inches wide.   
  
“And what about these?” He demanded, holding out his wrists, the rings of darkened, once broken and imperfectly healed skin encircling them both.  
  
For once, Jared looked both scared and enraged beyond belief. But the stormy blackness of his eyes brought Jensen no pleasure whatsoever.   
  
“Did you really not notice them? Or did you decide not to spoil your  _signature masterpiece_  with this ugliness?”  
  
Jensen started to reply but Jared didn’t let him. “Doesn’t matter,” he narrowed his eyes, now limpid and almost snarling at the artist. “You’re airbrushing everything that’s real about me. Because what’s real is pathetic and despicable, I get that.”   
  
Jared stretched one arm out, index finger pointing at the painting. “This imaginary perfection, this fucking innocence, whoever it is… it’s not me.”  
  
Jensen stayed silent, letting this tumultuous explosion of Jared’s long pent-up emotions play itself out. And after it did, after the wildness in Jared’s eyes was replaced with mortification at what he’d just said and done, Jared hugged himself again, gathering the open ends of the robe together as if to hide the lifetime of vulnerabilities he’d just laid bare.   
  
_Now he feels shy_ , Jensen mused.   
  
“J-Just so we’re clear…” Jared mumbled, before striding back to his spot across the room. He sat down, folding his legs Indian-style, rocking himself back and forth ever so slightly. And he refused to look back up, glaring at his recently clipped toenails as if they were the ones to blame for his outburst.  
  
Jensen licked the lingering taste of tobacco on his lips as his eyes flickered back from the clearly miserable kid to the painting before him.   
  
It was a large canvas, and the large dimensions would allow him to blow up every single minuscule detail, eventually. He hadn’t gotten there yet. The lines on the corners of Jared’s lips, for example, were yet to be deepened along with a whole gamut of spots and smudges and his two hundred moles and, yes, scars, that add depth and character to any portrait. Jared had no way of knowing but Jensen had had no intention of leaving any of his scars out. Although now, given Jared’s curious reaction, he was having second thoughts.   
  
He walked over to Jared and crouched in front of him, keeping his distance, unsure of what he was supposed to say, or do. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, he cleared his throat. “What  _is_ that?”  
  
“…”  
  
“That gash? Tire iron?”  
  
Jared still wouldn’t look up. “Close. It’s the end of a broken brake pedal from a ‘68 Camaro.”  
  
Jensen waited.  
  
“My… mom’s second husband, he called me down one night to his garage where he liked to work on his vintage cars on weekends. He told me, in no uncertain terms, to stop being gay, stop seeing guys, and stop dragging the Winslow name through the mud with my disgusting behavior.”  
  
Jensen closed his eyes for a minute, vaguely recalling that Jared had introduced himself as Winslow the first time they met, but didn’t he say his last name was Pada-something two days ago?   
  
“I was young. I was in love. I was a moron.” Jared’s voice was filled with bitter sarcasm. “I started mouthing off and it turned ugly and he… well, let’s just say he did his absolute best to beat the devil out of me, anything to secure his spot in the seven-star Presidential suite of the good Lord’s heaven.”  
  
“Please tell me he didn’t get away with it,” Jensen whispered, feeling his temper rising irrationally.   
  
Jared scoffed and finally looked up to meet Jensen’s eyes. “He was a public prosecutor back then. He is District Attorney for San Antonio now. What do you  _think_  happened?”  
  
Jensen was the first to look away, unable to hold Jared’s mordant gaze any more. No way could the kid, or anyone really, fake raw emotion like that.  
  
“What about those?” He glanced briefly at the wrists that Jared reflexively pulled into his chest and out of Jensen’s sight. Well, he shouldn’t have pointed them out if he didn’t want Jensen to see, but it’s not like Jensen hadn’t noticed them two and a half years ago.   
  
“Dirty cops. Two months later.”  
  
“San Antonio cops?”  
  
Jared just nodded, and Jensen didn’t like the sound of where this was going.   
  
“You know how it is, how it can be for the homosexual stepson of a public prosecutor with Republican ambitions in the South.”  
  
“…”  
  
“They kept me locked up in some kind of a solitary holding cell for three days, without warrant, without reason. Hands cuffed behind my back. Stripped to the skin. Cold. Blind…” Jared pointed absently at his face, “eyes swollen shut, either that or it was pitch dark all the time.”  
  
Jared fell silent then, for so long Jensen thought he was done, or had shut down mentally.   
  
“They used to bring me food, if you could call it food, and water in these dirty, leaking tin cups. Very Shawshank Redemption really. I remember looking at ‘em that first time and the first thought in my mind that first day was, man they must have been saving these for like, ever, for special cases like me. And for some reason, that made me laugh every time. Even when I couldn’t actually see, I’d hear them being slid through this mousehole in the door, and I’d start splitting my sides like a fucking psycho.”   
  
Jared laughed, to illustrate his point maybe. It was a sad, bitter sound, and it broke Jensen’s heart.  
  
“Did they… uh…?”  _Rape you?_  Jensen couldn’t bring himself to say the words.  
  
Jared shook his head, getting what was left unsaid. “The cops? No, they wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole, except for their hourly fun of kicking and punching me around, of course. What they did do was leave me locked up on the fourth night with this hardened criminal who had a reputation for fucking his bitches so hard they’d end up in the ER for days, some even traumatized for life. But that guy didn’t touch me either. Maybe he was onto them. He had no love for me but he hated those cops just too damn much. Maybe I was a bloody fucking mess, ugly to look at by the time he got me. Maybe he just liked to hurt straight men, I dunno.”  
  
“…”  
  
“It was supposed to be a lesson I wouldn’t forget. It was supposed to turn me not-gay, or something.”   
  
“Does your step-father know where you are now?”  
  
“I’m sure he’s just glad to be rid of me. The official story is that I went to live with my dad in Europe.”  
  
“But you’re using his last name.”  
  
Jared scoffed bitterly at that and didn’t explain but knowing a bit of how Jared’s mind worked, Jensen could guess the rest. The bastard hadn’t wanted Jared dragging the Winslow name through the mud, so that’s exactly what the kid did, in ways worse than just being  _queer_ , miles away from home where he couldn’t be touched (hopefully) by a corrupt DA or his goons.   
  
“What about your mom?”  
  
Jared just shrugged. The truth was probably too painful to talk about, and Jensen didn’t push.   
  
“You didn’t run to Manhattan  _just_  for a guy.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“I came ‘cause I thought Chad was the only one who'd take me in.” He murmured the rest reluctantly, “And he did. For awhile.”  
  
Jensen got up abruptly and went over to look at his canvas one more time. There he stood with his fists resting on his hips, head tilted to one side as he glanced back and forth between his subject and his work of art.   
  
“You’re wrong, you know.”   
  
Jared blinked as he looked up at Jensen, his eyes narrowed in confusion.   
  
“These scars don’t make you ugly. They don’t make you beautiful either. They don’t add or take anything away from your body, Jared. Physically, they are insignificant.”  
  
“They matter to me,” Jared whispered, almost sounding hurt by Jensen’s hard words.  
  
Jensen nodded gently and walked back to where Jared sat. “Let me try this again.” And he opened his mouth to do just that, except he didn’t know where to start sorting through the jumble of his thoughts.   
  
“Like, okay, uh, like in a painting at like a gallery… you know there’s the frame and there’s the picture inside it, right? The frame might be all,  _ornate_ , eighteen carat gold, the most beautiful specimen of craftsmanship ever. But that’s not what folks come to a gallery to look at. It’s the picture inside the frame that matters, right?”  
  
Jared frowned, not following, and Jensen stepped closer. “The body’s the frame, Jared. It’s what’s inside that matters. The frame might help catch eyes from a distance, and functionally hold the picture down in place. But it’s the spirit and character of a person that draws the crowds closer, keeps ‘em coming back for more.”  
  
“…”  
  
“You know what fascinated me the most about you, that first time I saw you? What fascinates me about most people, actually? It’s the eyes. Windows to the soul and shit? All true. Everything that’s unique about you, everything that’s worth knowing and sharing with the world, is in your eyes.”  
  
“…”  
  
“And if I were a better artist, a more gifted painter?” He used the quoty fingers when he said ‘gifted’, “That’s all I’d need to paint. Why do you think I keep trashing sketches after sketches, paintings after paintings? Because I just can’t seem to get them right – your ridiculously complex eyes.”  
  
Jared blinked a couple of times as mild color started rising to his cheeks.   
  
“In fact,” Jensen stretched an arm out to gesture at the canvas behind him. “This is the closest I’ve ever come, I think, and I’m  _still_  not sure I’ve done justice to you. Uh, I mean – your eyes.”  
  
Jensen looked away then, embarrassed, while Jared just stared at him, open-mouthed. “Maybe, now that I actually  _know_  a little something about what’s going behind them, I might do a little better.”   
  
“So, you won’t…”  
  
“I’ll keep your scars if you want me to. If you don’t mind strangers gawking at them, I will. I still got a few hours’ worth of detailing left to do.”  
  
“It’s not done yet?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Jensen sat down on the floor so they were at eye level with each other. He was grateful that Jared’s rocking had stopped at last. Didn’t know about the boy, but it sure was making  _him_  dizzy. He stayed quiet, giving Jared time to process everything.  
  
“What if people think these scars make me look like… a victim?”  
  
“They’d be stupid if they do. Your eyes tell a totally different story.”  
  
Jared almost smirked sardonically. “And what’s that?”  
  
Jensen bit his lip. “You’ve got the eyes of a gambler… shifty, distrusting, but resilient. Down on his luck, but stubborn enough to keep coming back to the game he’s lost way too many times before.”  
  
Jared lowered his gaze, didn’t react. But Jensen wasn’t done yet. “You wanna know what I see? I see a guy who’s just been dealt a hand and he’s looking at his cards. Your face… it’s blank on purpose, it’s goddamn annoying, but I see now why it’s necessary, why you do it.”  
  
Jared paused to think for a second. “What do the cards look like?”  
  
Jensen shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re your cards.”  
  
“…”  
  
“…”  
  
“Do you think I’m bluffing?”  
  
“Jury’s still out on that one.”  
  
Jared fell quiet at that. Jensen stood up again, lit another cigarette. He opened a window to blow the smoke out through, watching his painting, which he still wasn’t happy with, and his model, who still sat curled up around himself.   
  
“I want you to keep ‘em. My scars.”  
  
“…”  
  
“Who cares what people think? Most people are stupid anyway.”  
  
Jensen smirked. In his own crass way, Jared was echoing Jensen’s thoughts. Except for genuine art lovers, most people didn’t have the slightest clue about art. They completely missed all the subtleties, mostly because they never really took the time to look for them at all.  
  
“I like ‘em,” Jared said, with conviction bordering on sullenness. “So long as I have ‘em…”  
  
“…you have something to justify everything you’ve done since then?”  
  
“…”  
  
Jensen looked away before Jared could. He knew he was right from personal experience. He'd turned plastic surgeons away, hell-bent on keeping his scars as reminders of how foolish he'd been, so he'd never make the same mistakes again. And yet here he was, back in this studio again, with the same almond-eyed boy who betrayed him.

Jensen snorted. QED. Scars  _really_  didn’t matter, least not the ones on the outside.   
  
“Come on, back in position.”  
  
Jared obeyed, almost happy to end the conversation at that point. He disrobed and stretched out on the floor as was expected of him. Jensen stubbed his cigarette and went back to his easel. When he looked up across the studio and caught Jared’s eyes, they were a clearer hazel than they’d been all day.   
  
Two hours later, Jensen stood back flexing his wrist and scrutinized his handiwork. Let out a sigh of contentment and looked up at Jared, who’d fallen asleep at last. Jensen put his paintbrush down and wiped his hands clean. Gathering the comforter from the bed, he went to Jared, and gently draped the fabric over him. He switched the overhead light off, casting the long frame in darkness. Then quietly tiptoed out of the studio and went to the balcony with his cell phone.   
  
The call was picked up on the third ring. Samantha’s sleep-filled voice sounded worried. “Jensen?”  
  
“Sam! Hi, uh, I’m sorry to bother you this late…”  
  
“It’s alright, sweetie. Is everything okay?”  
  
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just need a big favor, a very urgent favor, actually.”  
  
“Fire away.”  
  
Jensen rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin with his free hand. “There is a DA in San Antonio, last name Winslow. You got that?”  
  
“Winslow? Isn’t that…” Sam didn’t quite finish her sentence, already knowing the answer to her own question. Jensen was grateful for her restraint as always.   
  
“I want you to find out everything you can about him and his family. And I mean  _everything_.”  
  
Sam’s curiosity came over the line clear as crystal. “You’re not going to tell me what this is about?”  
  
Jensen bit his lip. “Just wanna verify certain… facts, for now. That’s all.”   
  
Samantha was married to a senior FBI detective. And she herself had a vast network of sources spanning half the country and then some. If what Jared told him tonight was true, then Sam would find it herself soon enough.  
  
She exhaled loudly into the phone. “I’ll get back to you when I have something. Anything else?”  
  
Jensen grinned. “What would I do without you, Sammy?”  
  
“Crash and burn? Good night, sweetie.”  
  
After they hung up, Jensen returned to his easel and continued to work until two in the morning.   
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**[ix]**  
  
**_Jensen, 9th November, 2009._ **

  
  
Jensen slept in late the next morning. Passed out, actually. When he managed to finally blink his eyes open, it was nine forty-five. For a couple seconds, he didn’t care and promptly closed them again. But then he remembered the boy in the studio who must be starving to death by now.  
  
At once he jumped out of bed and into a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt. Struggling to tame his bed hair back with his fingers, he stepped out of his bedroom. He was immediately hit by a strong and tantalizing whiff of bacon, and he followed it, grinning, all the way into the kitchen.  
  
“Morning!” Jared greeted him with a soft smile of his own.   
  
He was wearing an apron over his sweats, Jensen’s apron (and technically Jensen’s sweats), and he was pressing two slices of bread into the toaster. There was a bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the kitchen counter, beautifully and painstakingly arranged like a fucking Monet.   
  
Jensen swallowed hard. He hadn’t had anyone make him breakfast in a very, very long time.   
  
They settled around the counter across from each other and dug into the delicious spread. As always, Jared focused on the food and didn’t bother with small talk, which Jensen didn’t mind either.   
  
“I didn’t know you cooked,” he offered as thanks, after picking the last strawberry from the bowl.   
  
Jared shrugged, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You worked really late last night?”  
  
“Uh, yeah.” Jensen drank from his coffee mug. “Perks of being self-employed, I guess. I get up when I want, work whenever I want, hang about all day with no train to catch, no traffic to battle, no office to go to. Yeah, I like it that way.”  
  
Jared nodded briefly then looked away. Jensen noticed his knee popping up and down on the bar stool he sat on.  
  
“So the painting’s done," Jensen threw out, hoping to distract the kid from whatever had him on edge.  
  
Jared looked back at that. “Yeah, I saw.”  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
Jared shrugged almost indifferently. “I don’t know much about art stuff.”  
  
“Come on, you gotta have an opinion.”  
  
Jared shrugged again and swiveled around on his stool. He probably didn’t realize it but Jensen caught his reflection in the metallic surface of the GE monogram freezer behind and saw Jared smiling bashfully, trying hard to bite it back. When Jared turned full circle to face the artist again, his face was blank as ever, but his eyes were sea-green, flecks of gold sparkling with emotion. Jensen bit his own giddiness back and hid behind his newspaper until he could compose himself.   
  
“So…” Jared began, for a change. Jensen put his paper down.  
  
“You gonna throw me out now?”  
  
Jensen rolled his eyes. “Why do you keep asking me that?”  
  
“Now that the painting’s done…”   
  
“Do you want to leave?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Alright then.”  
  
And Jensen went back to staring at the Editorial section. His heart was beating faster and his lips trembled. It was the shortest and easiest conversation he’d ever had, and yet…   
  
_Whatever happened to retribution?_  Because Jensen had just asked Jared to stay,  _to stay_ , and it wasn’t out of a need to punish him anymore.  
  
He steeled his resolve and put the newspaper down. Jared was still where he’d been two minutes ago, sitting up straight and staring at Jensen. His eyes were restless and his lips were open, gasping silently. Needless to say, he was beyond shocked himself.   
  
“But I’m not some schmuck you can mooch off forever, you know. You’re welcome to stay here so long as you pay your share of the rent and groceries.”  
  
Jared’s shock quintupled. “I can’t afford this place, not even like a twentieth of it, you know that.”  
  
Of course. “Not right away. But you can start with something.”  
  
Jensen wondered if he was coming across as harsh and obnoxious, hell, he must be. But he didn’t want to be used again, as surely as he knew he didn’t want to kick Jared out on his ass with nowhere to go.   
  
“How do you expect me to pay, again?”  
  
“Do you have a criminal record?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“So then maybe you should get a job.”  
  
“What if someone… you know…?”  _Recognizes him for the fugitive he is?_  
  
“If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably never going to happen.”  
  
Jared thought about it for a minute. “So, if I get a job, then I can stay?”  
  
“That’s what I said.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Jensen met his eyes forcefully even though he was freaking out on the inside. Was he sure? Was he really, really sure?   
  
_Of course not._  All he knew was, he didn’t want Jared to leave.  
  
“Doesn’t look like you got anywhere else to go, do you?”  
  
Jared’s voice dropped to a whisper. “So you’re letting me stay because I got nowhere else to go…”   
  
Jensen decided not to correct him. “So long as you get a job. That’s my condition.”  
  
Jared looked up, his eyes a steady shade of gray Jensen had never seen before. “Okay. That’s fair.”  
  
“Good. We start hunting today.”

*******

  
  
It was mid-day and the job hunt was not going well at all. Jared looked at the papers and came up with nothing. Jensen went through the internet postings and pointed out several different options all of which Jared refused. He’d dropped out of high school so that clearly restricted his options. He didn’t want to be a janitor, or a construction worker, or a shop floor attendant, or a gardener. He didn’t know jack about bartending, wasn’t confident enough about his parking skills to be a valet, didn’t think a telemarketer added any value to society…  
  
Jensen started to lose patience. “Dude, you have to start somewhere!”  
  
“But I don’t want to do–”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first ninety eight times. What is it you  _do_  wanna do? Huh?”  
  
Jared pouted at that. They’d been lounging about in the living room bathed in sunlight all day. Jared was stretched out on the couch, while Jensen sat hunched over his laptop next to him.   
  
“Come on, there must be something.”  
  
Jared smirked impishly. “Why don’t you just keep me? I can model for you whenever you want. And I can cook too – didn’t you like the bacon?”  
  
Jensen rubbed his forehead. “Look, Jared, I don’t think this attitude of yours is very healthy and quite frankly, I’m starting to lose respect for you here.”  
  
“Oh sure, like you’d ever respect someone like me,” Jared muttered bitterly and stood up, starting to stalk off to the balcony.   
  
“Jared… don’t you dare walk away from me!”  
  
“You’ve changed your mind and you want me gone! Why don’t you just admit that you still don’t trust me? You wanna get rid of me, fine, I’m gone!”  
  
“Oh no, you don’t.”  
  
Jared was starting to make a habit of emotional outbursts, and Jensen absolutely loved it. He got up and tackled the taller man from behind. Wrapping his arms around Jared’s waist, he practically lifted him off his feet, vaguely kicked because he couldn’t have done this to Jared at his normal body weight, swinging him around and bringing him back to the couch. Jared yelled in surprise and they both fell onto the couch, Jared finally collecting his wits to twist beneath Jensen so they were facing each other. Jensen had him trapped between his thighs and suddenly they started to laugh, jostling and roughhousing and tickling each other non-stop, until they were both breathless and begging for a break.   
  
And then they went still, gaping at each other, the sound of their rapid breathing eclipsing the silence between them.   
  
Jared raised his head to close the distance and kissed Jensen, once, twice. That’s all it took before Jensen gave up his pretense of being mad and surrendered to the kiss, entangling his tongue with Jared’s with rabid passion. Job hunt forgotten, they melted into each other, all arms and mouths, completely.  
  
“Condom, we need co…” Jared rasped. Instantly, Jensen jumped off the couch, ran to the kitchen and opened a top shelf where he kept the wine glasses.  
  
Jared raised one eyebrow peering from over the top of the couch. “Dude, you have that stuff stashed in every single room, don’t you?”  
  
Jensen grinned as he ran right back, ripping the packet open on his way. “What can I say, I was a boy scout.”   
  
Soon as he got back, Jensen pulled a laughing Jared’s jeans and boxers down to just under his ass, then flipped him over until he was on his hands and knees on the couch. Determining that lube wasn’t necessary and speed was of the essence, he quickly unzipped and sheathed himself in the latex, then entered Jared in one sound, swift thrust. Jared gasped but started to push back immediately until he could rest the crest of his ass against Jensen’s groin.   
  
“You okay?” Jensen remembered to ask.   
  
“Shut up and fuck me,” Jared whispered, pulling forward and then pushing back with all his might.   
  
Jensen did as he was told, but not before planting a couple of solid smacks to the boy's sassy little ass. Jared squeaked, pushing back heartily into every thrust of Jensen's hips forward. He seemed to want it rough, and Jensen was more than happy to oblige. Holding Jared around his slim waist, Jensen pounded into him over and over again, letting the kid's moans and whimpers guide him as he switched up from fast to slow, deep to shallow. He kept them both teetering on the edge for what felt like hours, until Jared was literally begging to come and Jensen wasn't so far behind either. They climaxed hard together, and when it was over, Jensen collapsed right on top of Jared on the couch. The living room reverberated with their violent breathing and two hearts thundering away in their chests. Eventually, Jensen moved and let Jared turn over so they faced each other again and he could kiss his muse properly.  
  
“You play hard ball, Mr. Ackles,” Jared drawled in an exaggerated Texan accent.  
  
“I just want you to be independent,” Jensen replied in between sucking on Jared’s tongue and licking the walls of his panting mouth. “I want you to have something of your own, Jare’… doesn’t mean I wanna be rid of you.”  
  
Jared didn’t say anything, averting his eyes to look down at the first button on Jensen’s shirt instead. He fiddled with it, which Jensen understood to be his way to distract them from the subject. He gripped the roving hand and made Jared look up into his eyes.  
  
“You think if you stay dependent on me, I won’t kick you out?”  
  
“…”  
  
“You really think I’m that much of a nice guy?”  
  
Jared bit his lip and looked down.   
  
Jensen sighed and sat up, rubbing his face, zipping himself back up. A part of him understood where Jared was coming from. Here was a kid who’d learnt to distrust authority at a very young age, who’d only known a band of thugs as role models for a good part of his formative years. Obviously his first instinct would be to look for short-cuts in every walk of life.   
  
“You’re right,” he said, knowing what he was about to say was going to be very difficult for Jared to hear. Hell, it was difficult for him to  _say_  it. “I really am a nice guy, a regular sucker. It’s what you took advantage of, before.”  
  
He felt Jared stiffen beside him, the hazel gaze turning to black instantly.  
  
“But if this is to work, between us, no one can be taking advantage of anyone, anymore. Do you understand?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Tell me you understand, Jared.”  
  
Jared averted his eyes and didn’t respond. Instead he got up and adjusted his own clothes, moving away from the couch.   
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
Jared found his shoes and coat and carrying them both in his hands, he started to walk out the door.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
The clipped one-word retort was immediate: “Out.”  
  
Jensen calmly watched as Jared walked out the door without saying goodbye, without another glance back. And when he felt something starting to crack inside his chest, Jensen pretended it was just a figment of his overactive imagination.

*******

  
  
Two hours later, Jensen started to get worried.   
  
Maybe he’d driven Jared away for good. Any normal human being would snap after taking so much crap, after being reminded of his past mistakes over and over again. Mistakes that he’d probably come back to atone for. After all, Jared did seem a changed man, older, more mature, cognizant of his actions and its consequences.   
  
Besides, if he was running another con-job he was moving way too slow, and aiming rather low too. There was absolutely nothing valuable in this house. Jensen didn’t even keep any of his paintings here.  
  
By evening, Jensen was pacing in the balcony and bordering on outright panic. He got a call from Sam and spoke to her for an hour. But once she hung up, the emptiness of the apartment returned to mock him. He finished his pack of Marlboros, stepped out to buy more, and was now working his way through the second one. He was scared, scared that he would never see Jared again. The full impact of that realization hit him like a two-ton truck – he was already missing the kid so damn much.   
  
Maybe Jared was never coming back. Maybe he’d lost his beautiful muse forever. Maybe he was never going to paint again, ever. And while that hurt his professional ego deeply, it was his heart that protested the loudest against the Jared-shaped hole left behind in his empty apartment.   
  
He spent what felt like hours before his painting until night fell, standing still as if he were posing for a portrait himself. The power equation had flipped on its head; suddenly he was the dependent one in this relationship....

Unless maybe, it'd always been that way. From the very beginning? 

*******

  
  
The doorbell rang twice before Jensen heard it, three more times before he believed it and got out of bed to answer it.   
  
He saw Jared’s profile in the security monitor and blood soared up to his face with superhuman force. He buzzed Jared in and soon as he threw the door open, he also threw every shred of emotional restraint out of it. Practically lunging at the tall man at his doorstep, he pulled Jared inside.  
  
“Where the fuck were you?”   
  
“I…” He didn’t even let Jared finish.  
  
He went up on his toes and kissed Jared so hard it almost choked the breath out of them both. The want, the need, the frantic craving he had for Jared right then was insurmountable. And he made sure Jared felt its manifestation as the rock-hard bulge in his jeans.   
  
Jared stood bewildered for a few seconds before he brought his arms up and around Jensen. In the meantime, Jensen pulled off Jared’s jacket, ripped the brand new shirt in two places and forced him out of the rest of his clothes on their way to the bedroom. Once there, he shoved Jared until he fell onto the mattress, bouncing off it once. Not bothering to undress himself, he grabbed lube and condom from a bedside drawer (just below the one where he stashed his gun) and climbed onto the bed after Jared. Then he picked up one of Jared’s legs and hooked it over his shoulder.   
  
“Ah!” A soft yelp escaped Jared’s mouth as his orifice was forced open by two slick digits without ceremony or warning, not allowed enough time to get used to the invasion.   
  
Jensen was conscious of every moan, every wince, every shudder that racked the younger man’s body. Hell he was the one causing them, reveling in the colors his fingers inside Jared painted on Jared’s face. This was not the revenge he’d been exacting for the past three days. No. This was a revenge of a different kind, for a different reason altogether.  
  
“Don’t. You. Dare. Ever…” He grunted angrily in between bites and licks and desperate kisses all over Jared’s face and neck.   
  
“Or you’ll what?” Jared dared to ask, hoarsely, his pupils blown wide open with the wanton wickedness Jensen had always known was there. Hell, he’d been drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  
  
In response, Jensen quickly prepared himself, and hooking both of Jared's long legs over his own shoulders, he drove in with one big ferocious thrust.  
  
Jared gripped the headboard railing behind him with both hands, and moaned the loudest he had all week.   
  
Jensen took his time, building up tempo and force in careful gradients. He intended to fuck Jared slowly, excruciatingly slowly. And in the position Jared was in, bearing all of Jensen’s weight above him, there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even move to take Jensen in deeper, could just squeeze and un-squeeze to tease and encourage Jensen wordlessly, which he did with crazed gusto. The older man gripped the back of his bony knees and further folded him in two.

"Grab your ankles, keep 'em there."

Jared mewled pathetically but did as told, his cock starting to leak already without even being touched.

It was a long, long while before Jensen decided he’d had enough and let go, exploding inside Jared with a garbled scream. Jared climaxed not long after, spilling his seed all over Jensen’s work shirt and his own pale stomach.  
  
When they finally climbed down from their individual heightened states of euphoria, Jensen pulled back, rolling the soaked condom off his still half-hard dick. He chuckled as he spotted the semen splatter on his otherwise just paint-splattered shirt and yanked it off, dropping it to the floor.  
  
“Guess it’s time to put this one in the wash after all.”  
  
Jared didn’t join in, he probably didn’t think it was funny, or maybe he was too tired to care. Instead he just lay there and stared up into Jensen’s half-lidded eyes.   
  
“I got a job.”  
  
Jensen’s lazy little grin froze on his face.   
  
“You’re looking at the newest deckhand aboard the Spirit, New York’s ultimate dining cruise.”  
  
Jensen stared at the boy beneath him, as Jared tried to explain through his obvious anxiousness. “I love sailing, my… dad, before he left, he-he used to take us every year.”  
  
“…”  
  
“They just have two conditions – I get my GED and, like, a transporter ID or something before the three month mark, else everything else is good to go.”  
  
It was hard to describe what Jensen felt in that moment. An indefinable mix of pride and gratitude, relief with confusion, and nervousness with this odd awareness that all was right with his world, that he needed nothing else. Jensen struggled to find the right word for it, because ‘happiness’ didn’t even begin to cover it.  
  
He collapsed backwards, his head resting on the foot-board, stretching his jeans-clad legs out until they rested by Jared’s head on the other end. He lay there, staring up at the white ceiling, at a complete loss for words. To be honest there didn’t seem a need to say much of anything at all. But, of course, Jared didn’t seem to think so.   
  
A minute later, his face hovered above Jensen’s, right in his line of sight. “So I can stay now, right?”  
  
How could the kid still be asking him that? Didn’t he know Jensen couldn’t let him go,  _ever_ , even if Jared wanted to?  
  
He opened his arms and let Jared press into his bare chest, wrapping him up and holding him tight. He pressed his lips into the top of Jared’s head and left them there, happy to let his eyes gradually droop all the way shut. Except, he couldn’t sleep. Because a certain someone pressed into his side kept squirming and shifting. Jensen finally let go, wondering if he was making the boy uncomfortable with all this cuddliness. They were supposed to be gay,  _goddamnit_.   
  
“What’s the matter, Jare’?”   
  
Jared sat up at that and sheepishly rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, I…”  
  
“What?”   
  
“I’m not used to beds anymore, Jensen.”  
  
Jensen smiled indulgently, then pulled the stark naked boy back down to lie beside him, this time spooning him from behind. “Well, you’re just gonna have to  _get_  used to ‘em again.”  
  
His fake snoring made Jared laugh and nestle back against him (which Jensen loved), holding on to the arm clasped around his waist like a lifeline. Jensen waited patiently as the younger man continued to fidget lightly, clearly trying hard to not jostle his 'gracious host' too much.   
  
“Shh,” Jensen offered, again and again, kissing his hair and his face until he felt Jared relax. Only once he’d heard the steady rhythmic breathing coming from the kid, did Jensen let himself drift away.  
  
  
  
*******  
  
  
**[x]**  
  
**_Jensen, 7th December 2009._**  

  
Jensen was putting the finishing strokes to his third commissioned painting this month, when he heard the door buzz and it made him smile.  
  
_Jare’s home._  
  
Jared refused to carry a key to Jensen’s apartment. It’d been an interesting conversation that happened exactly fifteen days ago over breakfast, just before Jared was supposed to head out to work.   
  
“You’re gonna need this,” Jensen had said simply, holding out the spare key.   
  
Jared looked at it and straightened up on the bar stool he sat on. “Are you sure?”  
  
Jensen rolled his eyes. That was fast becoming his second favorite question these days after “Are you going to throw me out?”  
  
“What if I’m not home? How will you get in?”  
  
“You’re always home.”  
  
“Woah, did you just diss my social life or lack thereof to my face?”  
  
“I didn’t say nothin’!”  
  
“Just take the damn key.  _Freak_.”  
  
Jared had scowled and mumbled something under his breath, and it made Jensen’s cheeriness quickly evaporate.  
  
“What did you say?”  
  
“Nothin’.”  
  
“You said somethin’.”  
  
“No, I didn’t.”  
  
“Did too.”  
  
“Did not.”  
  
Jensen had rolled his eyes again. The stubborn streak in Jared had started to make itself evident in recent days. He took it to be a good sign; while a pliant Jared was fun to play with in the studio (and in bed), Jensen was glad the kid was growing comfortable enough to be himself around Jensen.   
  
“Look, just speak up loud and proper or don’t say anything at all.”  
  
Jared bristled at the admonition, his voice rising a notch. “I said: Still the stupid Southerner. That’s what I said.”  
  
Jensen’s jaw had hardened, and he had gotten up and stomped off to his studio. Only to return seconds later, dragging Jared out of his seat and, well…  
  
Angry sex was fast becoming their favorite way to resolve tension. And Jensen never brought up the spare key ever again.  
  
Back in the now, Jensen wiped his hands clean as he walked to the door. They’d fallen into a comfortable routine: Jared would go to work at eight in the morning and come back by five or six in the evening. Working ten-hour shifts wasn’t Jensen’s idea of a career, personally. But tired as Jared was when he got back, he also always looked content.  
  
“Good day,  _honey_?” Jensen smirked as he let Jared in.   
  
Jared beamed back and stepped out of his boots and jacket. He pulled off his skull cap under which his hair (now shorter but still kinda long. Ish) was endearingly wind-blown and all over the place.   
  
“We went past Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck’s yacht today.”  
  
“Ooh, juicy,” Jensen offered sarcastically.   
  
“Matt and his wife were on it.”   
  
Jensen started for a second, before realizing Jared was referring to Matt Damon, the actor, not Matt Bomer, his ex-boyfriend. Funny, he hadn’t even thought of Matt since… well, in a long time now. Jensen glanced at his phone, remembered the three thousand messages he'd left for Matt and how none of them were ever returned. Then he remembered something else.  
  
“Here,” he said, picking a package gift-wrapped in plain brown paper from the coffee table and handing it to Jared, who had plonked himself on the couch and was getting ready to crank up the Wii.   
  
Jared took it happily and quickly ripped open the wrapper. He stilled when he found a Verizon flip phone inside. “Jensen?”   
  
Jensen flopped onto the couch next to Jared and picked up the second game console. “I miss you,” he said shortly, pointedly  _not_  looking at Jared.   
  
Jared looked at the phone for a long time, during which Jensen, feeling awkward himself, concentrated as hard as he could on a round of Alpine skiing.   
  
After awhile, Jared cleared his throat. “I’m gonna, uh, go hit the shower before dinner.”  
  
“Okay.” Jensen watched him leave, his head lowered, picturing Jared grinning from ear to ear behind his curtain of chestnut hair.   
  
Sometime after Jared left, Jensen lost the war of deliberation inside his head. He bit his lip, then picked up his phone and dialed Matt’s number. It went to voicemail after four rings, as always, and Matt’s soft cadence requested him to leave a message.   
  
“Hey Mattie, long time, huh?” Jensen forced a chuckle, suddenly realizing he really had nothing to say. “Just wanted to see how you’re doing. Well… okay then. Take care.”  
  
For once he got to hang up before he got cut off. And that’s when he noticed Jared leaning against the bedroom doorway, his silhouette lit up by the yellow light spilling out from the bathroom behind him. He had a white towel wrapped low on his waist, the sexy hip bones peeking out from over it, and his hair was dripping water all over his shoulders and rapidly developing chest. Jensen forgot all about Matt as the vision of his housemate (and maybe more) took his breath away.  
  
They made love in the bed before dinner and afterward, they shifted to the studio. Jensen couldn’t stop painting Jared – his face, his eyes, his navel, the swell of his ass… sitting up straight, curled up on his side, lying on his back spread wide open with not a care in the world, the once pale skin sun-burnt in places and covered all over in goose bumps…   
  
Right after they did it on the teak floor, a naked Jensen rolled over until he was straddling an equally naked Jared, tickling him out of his post-coital reverie. Jared whined in protest but stayed in place, too wrung out to push Jensen’s roving fingers away.   
  
“Open your eyes, Jare’.”  
  
“…”  
  
“Come on, baby, open ‘em, please?”  
  
Jared sighed and smiling exasperatedly, did as he was told. His hair lay fanned out all around his face like a shiny brown halo, his neck stretched upwards exposing a slender white column spotted in hickeys. The golden green sparkle of his eyes gave away the coyness in his heart, sending warm shivers down Jensen’s spine. He pulled his easel closer and ripped the blank canvas off it to spread it out on the floor beside Jared. Then picked up a new piece of charcoal to draw his latest masterpiece.   
  
Life went on, just like that. Stable, complaint-less, and Jensen made yet another fatal mistake of presuming that it would always be that way. 

*******

  
  
By middle of December, Jared had finished all five of his GED tests. The results weren’t in yet but he wasn’t too worried. He’d been a bright student back in high school (so he said), and so they decided it wouldn’t hurt to have a little pre-celebration in honor of his impending qualification.   
  
It was Friday night so they headed out for dinner to Periyali, the classic Greek restaurant on 20th street. They’d dined there before and it was one of the few upscale restaurants Jensen actually liked.   
  
“Again?”  
  
“What? I love the food, and so do you.”  
  
“Admit it,” Jared teased, “You  _looove_  that place ‘cause it’s  _sooo_  romantic.”   
  
Dim lighting, minimalist ambience, intimate conversation-friendly music, what’s not to like? Jensen threw a cushion in Jared’s face, quietly observing how they had both taken to saying the most _domestic_  of things under a thinly veiled pretense of sarcasm.   
  
“It’s either that or Mama Ackles’ soup and sandwiches. You pick.”  
  
Jared pouted shamelessly in response.   
  
They decided to walk it. A Christmas-lit, snow-covered Chelsea was a delightful experience to stroll through, especially on a full moon night. Jensen walked with his hands in his jacket pockets. Sometime after they cleared the Vanguard premises and stepped out onto the street, out of Beaver’s sight, Jared hooked his arm with Jensen’s, before burying said hand back in his own coat pocket. And he glanced towards Jensen shyly, waiting for a reaction, of any kind.   
  
Jensen just lowered his eyes to the ground and tried not to smile, too wide.   
  
Dinner was a pleasantly loud and talkative affair. Jared refused to admit the food was truly delicious but Jensen took his voracious slurping and large-sized second helpings as signals of his acquiescence. He’d been ambushed by how Jared’s appetite had grown by leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. And was even more pleasantly surprised when the bill came and Jared lunged at it in a heartbeat.  
  
“My treat,” he declared brightly.   
  
Jensen watched his expression as Jared looked at the final number on the bill. If he expected hesitation or sadness, or even humiliation, he was proven wrong. Jared pulled out hard cash from his brand new wallet and even tipped generously for their waiter’s excellent hospitality.   
  
“You’ve been saving up,” Jensen whispered, feeling ever so proud. It wasn’t such an unfamiliar sentiment to him anymore.  
  
Jared brushed it off easily. “A week’s paycheck for hummus, unbelievable.”  
  
Jensen threw a napkin at him and it made Jared snicker, all child-like and inelegant, what was that word Gen used? – gauche, even. It was the most adorable thing Jensen had ever heard.  
  
“We should get you a credit card.”  
  
“Cool! Amex like yours?”  
  
“Hold on there, tiger. Platinum is a little ways away for you.”  
  
“Show off.”  
  
Jensen chuckled. “Seriously, carrying all that cash around isn’t safe. Especially in Manhattan, you–“  _of all people should know that_.   
  
He stopped himself, but the damage was done. Jared’s smile faltered but Jensen promptly reached for his hand across the table, unwilling to let anything ruin this perfect moment, this perfect night…   
  
“So what’s your favorite thing about Christmas, Jared?”  
  
Jared exhaled and played along; a distraction was exactly what they both needed at this point. “Who says I like anything about Christmas?”  
  
Jensen blinked. “Wait, that’s my line. No, really, it is!”   
  
Jared chuckled and entwined his fingers with Jensen’s. “You can have it, I was just kidding. I do love Christmas. Especially white Christmas…”  
  
He proceeded to ramble on about his penchant for candies and chocolates and everything sweet and edible, while Jensen marveled quietly at how easygoing and  _fun_  Jared was to be around. Even for a killjoy like Jensen.

*******

  
  
After dinner, they decided to take the longer walk home. The night was still beautiful, and the men hadn’t tired of each other’s company just yet. They ambled past Madison Square Park teeming with tourists and New Yorkers of all ages, drawn to the gigantic Christmas tree and menorah lights. Jared had his arm hooked around Jensen’s again and like an excited young child he dragged his companion closer to the festivities.   
  
There they stood, leaning slightly against each other, in front of the magnificently lit tree. Jared was looking up with awe, the colors of the holiday lights reflecting in his hazel eyes.   
  
“Jensen?”  
  
“Hmm…”  
  
“Can we get a tree?”  
  
Jensen started and looked up at the tree. He’d never really been a big Christmas person. The holiday held significance only because he associated it with family, and loved ones, with getting to see them and be with them even if once a year. He was probably quiet a really long time, after which Jared cleared his throat beside him.   
  
“We don’t  _have_  to. Forget I asked, stupid question…”  
  
An old couple walked right past them. The woman, who looked to be in her sixties, glanced up in time for Jensen to smile and nod at her, and she did the same. Jensen used the reprieve to evaluate his options. These past two years, he’d been on his own in Paris, and celebrating Christmas (or anything else) had been the last thing on his mind. But now, with Jared’s innocent question hanging between them, Jensen felt a familiar tug on his heart strings. The kind he associated with family. And loved ones.   
  
_Fuck, a tree._    
  
Jensen bit his lip and looked at Jared, opening his mouth to speak, but he didn’t get a chance.   
  
“Oh my God…”   
  
It was the old woman who’d just passed him by. Jensen turned to see if she was alright, if maybe she was having a heart attack or something. The look on her wrinkled face almost confirmed his fears, except she was also staring right back at the two men, one hand raised, a finger pointed straight at…   
  
“That’s him,” she started with a whisper, which then quickly turned into a high-pitched scream. “Dear Lord, that  _is_  him!! That’s the boy!”  
  
Jensen looked up at Jared who hadn’t even noticed the woman until she started to scream. He turned, started to frown, and then suddenly his face froze, like he’d seen a ghost.   
  
People around them slowed down, some halted completely; curious to know what the commotion was all about.   
  
Jensen cleared his throat, hoping against hope she was really pointing at  _him_ , New York’s celebrated contemporary artist. “Uh, can I help you?”  
  
The woman clutched at her escort’s arm blindly and completely ignored Jensen. “He’s the boy who pretended to be a handyman and came into our house! Oh Henry, I told you I could never forget his face. That face, it’s HIM!”  
  
“Calm down, Ellen.” the sexagenarian man beside her said, in response to which the woman addressed Jared directly.  
  
“YOU! How could you?”   
  
Jensen took a step back, instinctively pulling Jared back with him. And then he heard the other voices in the gathering crowd, words he vaguely deciphered that sent his pulse racing.   
  
“Isn’t that Jensen Ackles, the painter?”  
  
_Shit._  Of all the days and all the places for him to get recognized…   
  
“Oh yeah, he’s that famous artist over at the E.Durance…”  
  
Jensen didn’t wait to hear more. He grabbed Jared’s hand, who still stood petrified in his spot, and started to swiftly walk away in the opposite direction, away from the crowd and the old woman’s screeching voice asking someone to “Stop him, he’s getting away!”  
  
He broke into a run then and Jared mutely followed, not like he had much of a choice with Jensen’s hand gripped around his wrist like a vice. Jensen felt his self-preservation instincts kick in, even though he wasn’t the one in any real danger here. And he didn’t stop to say or hear a word from Jared until they reached the Vanguard. He didn’t even wave his customary hello to Beaver, who stood by slightly bewildered, watching the shorter man drag the taller one all the way up to the eighteenth floor.

*******

  
  
Inside his apartment, Jensen shrugged off his coat and started to pace back and forth. He watched from a corner of his eye as Jared slid down to the couch, staring off into the automatic fireplace embers listlessly.  
  
It took him five minutes, or ten, maybe more, to calm his nerves down and articulate the one question reverberating inside his brain. It was a question he’d been running away from all month, too scared maybe to ask, and now it was back, flung right into his face by a complete stranger.   
  
How could he forget what Jared used to be?  _And maybe still is…_  
  
“How many?”  
  
Jared dared to look up at Jensen but he didn’t respond.  
  
“How many others, Tristan?”  
  
Jensen didn’t realize he’d used Jared’s criminal alias until it was too late. He watched as Jared flinched like he’d been hit, but he wasn’t ready to take it back, not yet.   
  
“You have to answer me, man. We’re not pretending this elephant doesn’t exist in the room anymore, alright? I need to know –  _how many_?”  
  
Jared gulped hard, lowering his eyes into his lap. “Four.”  
  
“Other than me?”  
  
“Including you.”  
  
Was he surprised to hear that answer? No. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he still remembered what the cops had said to him.  _Carefully orchestrated job, similar modus operandi, a couple of other cases in the Upper Eastside…_  
  
“And how many of those people ended up in the hospital?”  
  
“None.”  
  
“What about the cemetery?”  
  
Jared almost gasped at that, but didn’t look up to meet Jensen’s eyes. “None.”  
  
“Great. Lucky me.”   
  
“That was the first time the guys got made,” Jared offered by way of justification. “Usually I was the one who went in to scout the place out. And then the guys would come back and clean it out when no one was home. I don’t know how that woman guessed that I was involved. No one else did. Besides you.”  
  
Jensen lit a cigarette. He was seriously agitated, but his voice was now lower and calmer. “I wouldn’t have either, if I hadn’t forgotten my wallet and returned for it. You could have stopped me, in the car, but you were too shit worried about your own ass. And you let me walk right in on your homicidal buddies.”  
  
“I’m sorry. Nothing like it had ever happened before. I just… my mind shut down and I stopped thinking, I-I didn’t know what to do.”  
  
“…”  
  
“Jensen, please, I-I didn’t want you to know….”  
  
That made Jensen angrier, if that were possible. He stopped pacing and charged towards the couch where Jared sat. “You would have waltzed right back in the next day, expressed your sympathies for the burglary then carried on as if nothing had happened, ain’t that right?”  
  
Jared squeezed his eyes shut. “I… I liked you too much, and I tried, begged the guys to change their mind, find another target but… you didn’t know them man…”  
  
“Stop it.” Jensen cut him off, the brutality of his betrayal closing in on him like the claustrophobic white walls of the hospital room he’d been stuck in for weeks.   
  
He started to pace again, dragging on his cigarette furiously. Jensen couldn’t even bear to look at the other man right then. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours passed in absolute gut-wrenching silence. Silence that he knew must be driving Jared out of his mind and he found that knowledge blatantly satisfying, to say the least.  
  
“I know you don’t believe me,” Jared murmured, still hunched over, looking straight into Jensen’s eyes for a change. “But I was the one who turned them all in. I tipped off the cops, told them about our hideout. I did that to my friends because of… of what they did to you.”  
  
Jensen scoffed. “But you didn’t turn yourself in, did you?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Why? Because you weren’t the one with the crowbar in your hand? You were just as responsible, if not more, Jared. I  _trusted_  you. I liked you too, you know, the moment I laid eyes on you down at the Market. And you betrayed me.”  
  
There, he’d finally said it. The frustration of two and a half years, festering for so long, unspoken and unresolved, it all poured right out of him there and then and Jensen couldn’t stop it anymore. He didn’t even try.   
  
For the last thirty odd days he’d gotten to know Jared better. And somehow, something about him had melted all his grudges away, at least superficially. He’d surrendered to this man’s unaffected, otherworldly charms. He’d been overwhelmed completely by this incredible lust and passion and protectiveness and… well, everything else he’d felt for no one but Jared.   
  
Except tonight. Tonight it felt like the last month had never even happened.   
  
Jared apparently decided he didn’t have any more answers. He curled into himself, refusing to move or look up at Jensen again. And he’d have probably been more than happy to stay that way forever (because what else were they supposed to do?) if it weren’t for the screeching buzz at the door.   
  
Jared jumped. So did Jensen. Who could it be at this hour if not the– ?  
  
_Oh no_.   
  
The buzz was loud and insistent, and Jensen finally found his feet and moved to answer it. It was Beaver, from downstairs, and on the grainy little video monitor he looked rushed. “Mr. Ackles, bunch of cops coming up to your apartment.”  
  
Jensen swallowed, and after a second’s pause, buzzed back. “It’s okay, Jim. Thank you.”  
  
He turned to find Jared standing, his face ashen, stark naked terror glistening in his blackened eyes. Jensen found his urge to gloat evaporating because Jared really didn’t look so good.   
  
“Look, maybe they just want to talk to you. Just be cool and…”  
  
Jared started to hyperventilate. Jensen frowned, taking two steps closer. “Hey, you okay?”  
  
Jared tried his best to respond, swaying a little on his feet. “C-cops, I-I…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I can’t. N-no, I can’t…”  
  
And then Jensen remembered. The dirty cops who’d locked him up and abused him for days…   
  
Jensen felt his rage slowly melting away driven by another fervent and instinctive need to pull Jared into his arms. But he stayed his ground, touching nothing but cool air as he held his palms up in placation.  
  
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll handle it. Jare’…? Hey, look at me…”  
  
Jared started to pedal back, his calves inevitably hitting the couch behind and he clumsily fell back on it, but he didn’t stay put. He pushed himself up again and continued to stare at the door, probably expecting (and dreading) New York’s finest to come bursting through it any minute. He wasn't wrong.  
  
“Hey, it’s okay. What happened in Antonio, it won’t happen again, I promise, okay? This is New York. Listen to me, it will be fine!”  
  
Just as Jensen plucked enough courage to reach out for Jared, the doorbell rang. Cursing he turned about, walking ever so slowly towards the door.   
  
“Jensen Ackles? NYPD. Open up, we need to talk.”  
  
There was only so long he could delay it, and before they knew it, he’d let the cops in.   
  
The first one through the door was a tall black man with a bulletproof vest on. What the hell were they expecting, a fucking Hollywood shootout?   
  
“Tristan Winslow?”  
  
None of them, except one, a lady detective with her gun holster showing inside her beige jacket, looked at Jensen. They were all focused on Jared, as if trying to make up their minds if the face matched the sketch that was most definitely imprinted on their minds.  
  
“I’m Detective Whitfield, this is Detective Cassidy. We have a warrant for your arrest on charges of armed burglary and aggravated assault in the case of home invasion at the residence of a Mrs. Ellen Geer…”  
  
“Wait, hold on…” Jensen tried, to which Detective Whitfield turned towards him, forcefully enunciating the next few words.  
  
“… and a Mr. Jensen Ackles.”  
  
Everything was a blur. The artist couldn’t hear much above the loud thumping of his own heart. He turned towards a completely frozen Jared and watched, helpless and far removed, as the light in those magical hazel eyes extinguished. The shoulders slumped horribly, signifying complete and utter resignation to his impending fate. He’d never seen Jared that defeated, even when he was just another homeless kid squatting on the street.   
  
“Jared,” he tried reaching to him through the wall of cops keeping him away. “Jared, it’s alright. I’m calling my lawyer right now. Don’t worry okay? I’m gonna take care of this…”  
  
Someone politely recited the Miranda rights to Jared as someone else pulled his hands behind his back to slap a pair of cuffs on them. Jared closed his eyes and hung his head. Jensen could see the violent trembling starting to make its way up his back and all the way to his lips.   
  
“Please, be careful with him. He’s, he’s not…” Jensen stammered, not knowing what to say to the cops, so he turned his attention back to his boy. “Jare’, listen to me! I’m right behind you, alright? Just stay calm and don’t say anything until I get there with a lawyer, okay? Jared?”  
  
Detective Cassidy made a note of the name Jensen kept using for the suspect, and led the entire procession back out of the apartment. Numbly, Jared let himself be steered away, giving no indication whatsoever of the storm brewing inside him. Jensen asked a cop where they were taking him, noted the precinct down along with whatever information on the charges he could retain. And then he stood by, powerless, as Jared was dragged out of his life, without allowing him so much as a backward glance.   
  
He bit down on his quivering lip and dialed Matt’s number with his mobile. This time the message he left was short and curt, and if his voice shook, heavy with the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, Jensen couldn’t care less.  
  
“Matt Bomer. I need you to call me back right away. PLEASE.”  
  
Hanging up, he ran out to his car and tore out of the Vanguard parking. Twelve seconds later, his phone rang.   
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**[xi]**  
  
**_Jensen, 16th December 2009._ **

  
  
  
Jensen drove like a maniac. He figured he was behind the cop cars by about five minutes, not that his presence at the precinct could help Jared much. He was in a rabid state of panic and let out steam through rash driving and gratuitous cursing, hoping he’d have worked it all out while he was still on the way. Once he reached Jared’s side, he needed to be strong for both their sakes.  
  
Jensen could only imagine what was going through that kid’s head.  
  
_“They kept me locked up in some kind of a solitary holding cell for three days, without warrant, without reason. Hands cuffed behind my back. Stripped to the skin. Cold. Blind… eyes swollen shut, either that or it was pitch dark all the time.”_  
  
Jensen rammed the heel of his palms against the steering wheel over and over again. He hated fucking Manhattan for its one hundred thousand red lights.  
  
No, he was no use to Jared in his current state, or even otherwise. What could and  _would_  help though was the arrival of Matt, if he lived up to his promise and brought along with him one of the best rising star defense attorneys in Manhattan: a formidable woman Jensen had had the fortune of meeting a few times back when he was still with Matt.  
  
Erica Durance.  
  
At the precinct forty-five minutes later, Jensen’s frustration grew and grew as there was still no sign of Matt or Erica, and the cops continued to refuse to let anyone but a lawyer see Jared.  
  
“He’s being processed, you have to wait right here, sir!” Detective Whitfield and another cop in uniform looked like they were preparing to physically restrain Jensen from leaving the visitor area.  
  
“You better not be interrogating him without a lawyer present in there.”  
  
Whitfield rolled his eyes. He probably got that a lot, civilians telling him how to do his job. “If you want, we can get the court to appoint him a –”  
  
“Jared’s lawyer is going to be here any minute.” Jensen rebuked the offer ungratefully.  
  
Whitfield narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “You don’t seem to get it, do you? That man inside? The one you’ve been sheltering in your home all this time is responsible for putting  _you_  in a coma back in 2007.”  
  
_I know that!!_  Every bone in his body ached to scream those words out loud into the detective’s face. But Jensen’s limited knowledge of the law managed to kick in at the nth moment and shut him up.  
  
Cassidy joined her partner then, and the two detectives stared at Jensen like he was from Mars, waiting for what should have an appropriately outraged reaction. But Jensen was a painter, not an actor.  
  
_Please don’t put him in a holding cell. Please just give him back to me, please._  
  
“Sorry I’m late!”  
  
A loud, almost chirpy feminine voice cut through the chaos in his head and Jensen spun around. Erica Durance strode right over to the detectives until she was by Jensen’s side. She sent a brief nod and a pointed look towards Jensen (that probably said ‘keep your trap shut or else’ but he could be wrong). And then she held out a hand for the two detectives to shake, who evidently knew her well enough.  
  
“Kate. Charles. Working Friday night again, I see?”  
  
“Ms Durance. Pleasure, as always,” Cassidy offered in response, her voice dripping with equally scathing sarcasm.  
  
Erica ignored the jibe just as easily. “I’m representing Tristan Winslow and I’d like to see him right away.”  
  
Whitfield seemed to share a friendlier equation with the lawyer but he continued to glare suspiciously at Jensen through the corner of his eyes.  
  
“Give us a minute, Ms Durance,” he said and walked away with Cassidy. They were conferring in whispers soon as they were out of earshot.  
  
_A fucking holding cell_ , the four words echoed inside Jensen’s head and were interrupted only when a woman came to stand in his line of sight. That’s when he remembered his manners.  
  
“Erica! Thank you for coming.”  
  
He kissed her cheek and she smiled at him warmly, “It’s been awhile.”  
  
“Yeah, too long,” he agreed, unable to decode the neutral expression on the woman’s face, careful and diplomatic, as always.  
  
The woman was as tall as Jensen in her stilettos and her dark brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail on top of her head. She wore a black dinner jacket three sizes too big over what was clearly a little black dress. Matt must have pulled her out of a social engagement. The jacket was vintage Gucci, which meant there was a very high possibility it belonged to…  
  
“You remember my husband, Tom?”  
  
Jensen turned then and noticed two men standing a few feet behind him. The tall one stood with his hands in his black pants’ pockets, thick black hair slicked back neatly, crystal blue eyes boring right into Jensen’s. Jensen managed a polite nod, the rush of nostalgia both elating and disconcerting because he and Welling hadn’t parted on exactly amicable terms. But it was the shorter, slighter man who caught his gaze and held it for what felt like a small eternity.  
  
“Matt?”  
  
Matt had hung back, on purpose, leaning against a far wall with his arms crossed against his chest almost in self-preservation. He wore dark blue jeans that accentuated his skinny legs crossed at the feet, a dark green turtleneck sweater and his favorite grey hoodie. He hadn’t given up his black horn-rimmed glasses either. Yeah, he hadn’t changed one bit.  
  
Matt looked at Jensen, eyes filled with sympathy, lifting one hand to wave a hesitant ‘hi’. Classic Bomer move that, demure yet enrapturing in the best of ways.  
  
Erica cleared her throat, just as Jensen started to head towards Matt. “I should go talk to the detectives. I’ll be right with you.”  
  
Jensen nodded and watched her head toward the cops, then took a deep breath and turned back to Matt. He walked right past Welling, heading straight to Matt and unceremoniously pulled him into his arms, practically lifting him off his feet. Severely short on words as always, this was his way to express his gratitude.  
  
Matt barely returned the hug, remaining still and recalcitrant, but Jensen persisted. He felt the exact moment in which Matt sighed in exasperation and let himself sink right into his ex’s arms. That’s when someone  _else_  cleared their throat beside them, making Matt jump and in turn forcing Jensen to let him go.  
  
“Oh, hey, uh… I didn’t know you were coming too.”  
  
Tom shrugged, “I drive faster.”  
  
“Thank you, all of you,” and Jensen meant it from the bottom of his heart. He and Welling finally shook hands, stiffly, but Jensen didn’t dwell on it for too long.  
  
A moment of silent awkwardness followed during which Jensen turned to Matt again, but the other man just dug his hands in his jacket and looked away.  
  
“So,” he began, rocking on his heels a little. “I suppose I’ve earned the right to say ‘I told you so’?”  
  
Jensen grimaced, “Yes, but I’d prefer you didn’t.”  
  
Matt looked up at him directly at that, his voice soft and stable as always. “And what about now, shacking up with him all over again? What if you’re making the same mistake again, Jensen? Trusting an ex-con?”  
  
Jensen rubbed his eyebrow and let him ramble on for awhile. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure telling Matt everything on the phone had been such a great idea.  
  
“I know you  _think_  he’s been going hobo for awhile, but Jensen he’s a conman. He could be working another job or it could just be his clever little way of hiding in plain sight. And now he’s back to leeching off of you again and you’re letting him? How can you forget everything that happened, Jensen? After everything he did to you, to us?”  
  
“What happened to  _us_  was my fault and it’d been a long time coming, Matt. You cannot blame Jared for that.”  
  
“I thought his name was Tristan.”  
  
Jensen rubbed his forehead again, starting to develop a mild headache. “Yeah, Tristan’s his middle name. Long story.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter, Jensen. How can you forgive him, just like that?”  
  
“Because he’s been punishing himself for all this time even when he’d clearly gotten away with it, don’t you see? Because he’s been trying so hard to make it up to me, and because he deserves a second chance. Fuck,  _I_  deserve a second chance,  _with him_!”  
  
A sudden silence fell, as if the whole station decided to shut up the moment Jensen began his emotionally charged outburst. Jensen realized, only too late, what he’d just said. And now there was no turning back.  
  
Matt glowered at him, disapproval painted across his face. “Punishing himself would have been turning himself in, Jensen.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s another long story. Let’s just say I get why he didn’t.”  
  
“But knowing there were other jobs, other victims?”  
  
“Look I’m not going to justify any of his crimes, but…” Jensen exhaled, he was so tired and the night (or nightmare) had only just begun. “What’s important is that he’s not that person anymore. I know it. I can feel it.”  
  
And he did. Every time he looked into Jared’s eyes and saw the perpetual insecurity there, every time he held him in the circle of his arms in bed, waiting patiently for the squirming to stop, every morning when he kissed Jared goodbye and every evening he kissed him hello. He  _felt_  it. Deep in his bones.  
  
“I  _love_  him, Matt. I… I think I always did.”  
  
Matt looked like he was about to chew him out, again, and even opened his mouth to do so. But then he didn’t. Almost as if he understood. Or maybe he realized he didn’t actually care. He crossed his arms and looked away instead, not sure what to say anymore.  
  
“I am so sorry, Mattie,” for everything Jensen did wrong to him, for all the little things that weren’t considered crimes by law but had probably been just as painful and mentally abusive as Jared’s betrayal to Jensen. It didn’t matter that Jared never meant to hurt Jensen, or that Jensen didn’t set out to hurt Matt. People got hurt anyway. Roads to hell and intentions and shit.  
  
Matt closed his eyes for a long time and didn’t respond.  
  
“Come here.”  
  
And again Matt didn’t seem to want to, but Jensen effortlessly pulled the slim frame into his arms one more time. He heard Matt whimpering a meek protest and felt his struggle to keep his glasses on his face that was getting mushed into Jensen’s shoulder. Matt relented eventually, his fingers twisting into the back of Jensen’s shirt, clutching the fabric like a long lost lifeline.  
  
A second later, Welling cleared his throat,  _again_ , very loudly and very insistently. Jensen frowned, forced to let Matt go again.  
  
“Alright, what’s up with the throat clearing, man? I know you’re Mattie’s best friend but trust me, I’m not looking to hurt him again. I just want to apologize, and maybe try and be friends again, that’s all.”  
  
Welling came up to stand in front of Matt, practically pushing his friend behind himself. “I don’t know if I believe you, Ackles. So I’m just gonna make sure you understand that Mattie has moved on too, and he’s finally happy. So if for even a second you think that you can amble in here and bat those stupidly feminine eyelashes of yours and make Matt fall for you all over again, you’re sadly mistaken.”  
  
“WHAT the fuck are you on about?” Jensen lost it then, advancing on Welling until they were both right in each other’s faces.  
  
“Oh-kay!” Matt exclaimed in the nick of time, before one of them could punch the lights out of the other, in a police station at that. He came in the middle of the two taller men and planting one hand each in both their chests, he pushed them further apart.  
  
“Tom, please go wait in the car. Tom,  _please_??”  
  
Still glaring at Jensen, Tom reluctantly made his way out. Matt turned to Jensen, adjusting his glasses.  
  
“I’m sorry I didn’t return your messages before. There just seemed to be no point, you know?”  
  
“I know. I‘m just very grateful you returned the one that mattered the most. You’ve no idea how much this means to me and Jared. Thank you.”  
  
Before Matt could say anything else, Erica came back.  
  
“Hey, so I spoke to the prosecutor. Just because you want to drop all your charges against Jared doesn’t automatically exonerate him from the case, and then there’s Ellen Geer.”  
  
They’d had the worst luck tonight. Both Jensen and Jared got made within seconds of each other.  
  
“She lost priceless family heirlooms that got sold into the black market way before the gang was busted, and she’s likely never going to see them again. She’s pissed.”  
  
“So what can we do?”  
  
“Tristan was never physically present at any of the crime scenes when the crimes happened. So we can probably bring the charges down to aiding and abetting.”  
  
“And if he gets convicted?”  
  
“Could be anywhere from three to ten years.”  
  
“WHAT?”  
  
Erica lowered her voice. “You nearly died, Jensen.” But that was all she offered by way of explanation.  
  
“Wh-what about bail?”  
  
“Yes, your written testimony can help us get bail for now. I’ll have it drawn up right away and sent for your signature. But it’s too late to find a magistrate tonight, so we’ll post bail first thing tomorrow morning.”  
  
Jensen’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach. “Bu-but that means Jared will have to spend the night in jail?”  
  
“I’m afraid so.”  
  
“No, Erica, there has to be another way. You don’t understand, that kid, he is severely traumatized. Cops and prison cells are not a good memory for him and this must be fucking him up already. Please you have to get him out somehow!”  
  
Jensen felt Matt’s eyes boring into the side of his head but he couldn’t stop to acknowledge that yet.  
  
Erica nodded but didn’t look very optimistic. “I can get one of my doctors to come and check on him. If he diagnoses Tris- I mean Jared’s condition to be deteriorating he can be moved to a sanitarium. Let me see what I can do.”  
  
She pulled out her phone and started making calls. Meanwhile, Jensen found himself a secluded corner and dialed his manager’s number.  
  
“Sam? ... Hi, it’s me… Remember that folder you’ve been working on, on our friend, Clark Winslow, down in San Antonio? ... It’s time to put it to use…”

*******

  
  
It’d been a long shot, and Erica had told him as much two hours ago. The psychiatrist Erica sent in came out claiming that Jared was perfectly calm, and actually, disturbingly so given the circumstances. He was lucid and rational, and he was under obvious mental pressure but seemed capable of handling it. But Jensen had seen that look on Jared’s face just before the cops showed up at their door. In fact, he was never going to forget it.  
  
“What? No no no, there’s no way. Your doctor is mistaken, Erica.”  
  
“He’s the best clinical psychiatrist in New York.”  
  
“Knowing what I know about Jared, I doubt it.”  
  
Erica huffed, looking exhausted herself. “Look, bottom line: there is nothing  _apparently_  wrong with Jared that might warrant an emergency medical response!”  
  
“…”  
  
“I’m sorry, Jensen. I just talked to him too, you know, and... maybe he’s stronger than you give him credit for.”  
  
“I need to see him, please,” Jensen said, hoping she was right and he was wrong.  
  
Erica nodded, then turned on her heels to go talk to Detective Whitfield. Fifteen minutes later, whatever she said or did, allowed Jensen ten minutes to meet Jared. He thanked her profusely and went after the sergeant who led him into a visiting room.  
  
Once inside, Jensen waited, fidgeting in his chair until a few minutes later, the door opened.  
  
Jared was dressed in an ugly orange jumpsuit and white sneakers. His arms were bare from the top of his biceps to the hands locked in steel cuffs in front of him.  
  
“Oh God, please take those off,” Jensen begged the officer who’d just accompanied Jared in, but the man pretended like he heard nothing and promptly left. Jared, for his part, wordlessly sank into the chair he’d been led to, without once looking up at his visitor.  
  
Jensen leaned forward, resting his hands on the table and mimicking Jared’s posture. It took a couple minutes of deathly silence for him to give up hope: Jared was not going to look at him.  
  
“Jare’…”  
  
“…”  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Jared nodded shortly.  
  
“Good boy,” Jensen whispered, knowing he was lying but appreciating his effort. Stupid questions deserved stupid answers, after all.  
  
He inhaled deeply and tried to center himself. “Look, it’s just a matter of one night, okay? We’re posting bail first thing tomorrow morning.”  
  
Jared looked up at him at that. “How much?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The bail amount, how much is it?”  
  
Jensen didn’t like the sound of that. “We don’t know yet. It doesn’t matter anyway.”  
  
“It matters to me. How much would I owe you? Ballpark figure?”  
  
“Jared, stop it!”  
  
Jared clenched his teeth and went back to staring at the handcuffs around his wrists. Jensen forced himself to calm down. He tried to reach for Jared’s hands but the other man pulled them back to rest them in his lap instead.  
  
“It’s going to be fine, kid. I ain’t going anywhere. And there are no bad cops here. You will be safe, I promise you. Erica spoke to the detectives and they’ll transfer you to your own private holding cell.”  
  
Jared trembled a little and Jensen panicked. “U-Unless that’s not what you want?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Jared? You heard me, right?” Realizing he was not going to get an answer, Jensen deliberated internally and reached the conclusion that a private cell in this precinct was definitely the safer option. He tried changing the subject.  
  
“Do you want a smoke? N-No? Anything else I could get you?”  
  
It was a lost cause. Ten minutes were up before he knew it and they took Jared back to his cell. Jensen literally crumbled inside. This hurt more than everything that happened two and a half years ago, more than any physical or emotional pain he’d experienced.  
  
Watching Jared hurting hurt more than Jared’s betrayal itself.  
  
  
  
*******  
  
  
**[xii]**  
  
**_Jensen, 17th December 2009._**  
  
  
Jensen drove home shortly after the clock struck two AM, unable to help Jared in any way that night. He jumped into the shower first, then came out and poured three fingers of single malt down his throat. That didn’t help so he tried a cigarette, which he threw away after only two mouthfuls of smoke. He tried whaling away at his punching bag and worked up a good sweat, but the endorphins only lasted so long and he went and stood under a cold shower again.  
  
Finally, reluctantly, he strode into the studio, flicked the overhead lights on and stood with his hands on his hips before his largest canvas, his greatest masterpiece.  
  
Thoughts whirled around in his head, about everything that had happened tonight, these past two months. Hell, the past three years had been the most trying times of his life and also by far the most eye-opening. Jensen never knew how limited his insight into  _himself_  was, until Tristan came into his life.  
  
Back in school, exploring the world of drugs to reach a higher state of consciousness, or whatever kids were calling it these days, did absolutely nothing for his art. Later, exploring his dark embittered side in self-imposed isolation away from home and country where he didn’t even know the language… yeah, that got him nowhere either.  
  
Like all artists, Jensen’s work was driven by emotions but unlike most, he needed his emotions  _in control_  to function right. He needed to be calm and stable. He needed to feel content to feel confident, to keep his hands steady and his head in the right place. In a world full of famously neurotic artists, he sure stuck out like a sore thumb. After all, what kind of a lame-ass artist couldn’t channel his bitterness or overmedicatedness into million dollar art decos?  
  
Jensen didn’t want a million dollars. All he wanted was Jared. All he  _needed_  was Jared, the kid who’d almost cost Jensen his very young life. And if that wasn’t neurotic enough, then what was?  
  
He spent most of the night tossing and turning, hatching fantastical plots in his head to break Jared out of jail and run away with him to the far ends of the earth where no one cared who they were. Where Jensen could keep Jared safe, away from the Ellen Geers of his past. And maybe Jensen could start again too, in a brand new genre of art, like pop or digital. Maybe sculpting.  
  
The dreams were interrupted by broken visuals of Jared in jail, alone (or maybe not, which was worse) and frightened out of his wits, and they sent Jensen straight up in bed picking up his phone to call the precinct again. Nothing ever came out of those calls, of course, except curt assurances or admonishments for keeping the lines engaged for nothing. His reputation clearly preceded him by the time he returned at six in the morning.  
  
The man at the reception made a “you again” face but let Jensen in without a word. He ignored all the disparaging stares, just sat where he was told and waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
At nine thirty two, Erica Durance walked in (this time dressed more appropriately as a lawyer should be) with the bail signed by the first magistrate she could find, and Jared was released. As they waited for Jared to be brought out, Jensen thanked her again, to which she just shook his hand and smiled.  
  
“Don’t thank me, thank Matt. I wouldn’t ditch opera night with my husband for anyone except him.”  
  
Jensen nodded. “When should I come to your offices to settle the expenses?”  
  
Her eyes softened. “Jensen, come on. Weren’t we all supposed to be friends?”  
  
“Yes, but…”  
  
“Fine, you can take me out to lunch after this is all over. I’d love to meet you guys in less  _judicial_  circumstances some time.”  
  
“Oh, absolutely. I hope I get to see more of you and Tom, and Matt too. If he’d like to, that is.”  
  
Erica gazed right into Jensen’s eyes. “Don’t worry so much about Mattie, Jensen. We’ve got him.”  
  
Jensen frowned just a bit at Erica’s strange choice of words but didn’t get time to contemplate before Erica signaled at something behind him. “Here he comes.”  
  
Jensen turned to find Detective Whitfield leading the way, and his boy trailing behind him (almost as if he were hiding behind Whitfield) obediently. He was wearing his street clothes from the night before and when he looked up, Jensen noticed his eyes were bloodshot – like he’d been crying or he hadn’t slept all night, or both. Jensen swallowed tightly, but didn’t move. Instead he waited until Jared took the thirty thousand baby steps it took to reach him.  
  
“Mr. Ackles,” Whitfield reached him first, unfortunately. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”  
  
As a cop, the guy was only doing his job. But seeing the trembling return to Jared’s lips at the sound of those words, Jensen wished the man didn’t care so damn much.  
  
“Ready to go home?” he asked Jared with as much cheer as he could muster, pointedly ignoring the well-intentioned detective’s warning.  
  
Jared probably noticed, but didn’t respond. Instead his eyes flickered to the woman beside Jensen who had so far kept her opinions to herself.  
  
“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice no more than a raspy whisper that made Jensen ache inside.  
  
“Piece of cake!” Erica replied brightly, and she somewhat managed to melt the somber expression on Jared’s face.  
  
“So, what happens next?”  
  
“Well, Jensen isn’t pressing charges, obviously. And they haven’t been able to tie you in with any other incidents yet.”  
  
Jensen didn’t like the way she said  _yet_.  
  
“That leaves Mrs. Geer, and our best bet there is to settle out of court for nothing more than complicity. The three actual perps are behind bars already and will remain there for thirteen more years without parole, so she will just have to be satisfied with that.”  
  
Jared looked down to his toes and nodded. Jensen knew him enough to know he was thinking money again.  
  
It was Erica who broke the awkward silence. “Well, I really should run, sorry, got a big day in court.”  
  
At the door, Jensen gave her a brief hug and when they parted, she put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. She kissed Jared almost tentatively on the left cheek, as if she were afraid he’d reject the physical proximity, but he didn’t. Instead he weakly nodded a goodbye, and then she was gone.  
  
Jensen didn’t wait to be spurned again and reached out to gently take Jared’s arm. He was prepared to be shrugged off, or punched in the face, whichever. When neither happened, he sent up a silent grace and wordlessly walked to his truck, still holding Jared by the elbow, not giving him any room to wiggle away just in case. Just as silently he opened the passenger side door and waited until Jared got in. For a moment, it looked like Jared would refuse.  
  
“Don’t. Just… get in, Jared, please.”  
  
Sighing, the brunet complied and Jensen closed the door behind him. Once he was in his seat, he reached out to click Jared’s seat belt in place. Apparently not doing it himself was Jared’s little rebellion against his abduction, as was the staring out of his window and refusing to look at Jensen. The older man didn’t push. Quietly he pulled out of the precinct’s parking lot and took off for the 24th street.

*******

  
  
Back at the Vanguard, Samantha Smith was waiting for them downstairs in the lobby. She wore a crisp black skirt with a mauve shirt tucked in, top three buttons open to tease an enticing cleavage. Her hair was loosely but stylishly gathered up on top of her head, and she didn’t seem too happy with the stilettos she’d forced her feet into this morning.  
  
“Sammy, thanks for coming.”  
  
She marched up avidly to Jensen and gave him a brief hug, before looking up (suspiciously) at his tall companion.  
  
“Jared,” she offered briefly.  
  
Jared nodded back with equal terseness. Jensen tried to hold his hand, but he pulled away instinctively, looking down at his shoes the way he used to back when they were still held together with duct tape.  
  
Jensen winced before he turned towards his manager. “Come on up.”  
  
“Uh,” Sam whispered. “I’d rather we talk here, in private?”  
  
Jensen nodded and turned to Jared. He took his keys and held them out. “Go on, baby. I’ll be right up.”  
  
Jared glared at him first, then the keys, then back at Jensen, wordlessly refusing to comply.  _What makes you think I’ll take them now?_  – his tired, black eyes seemed to convey.  
  
“Jared,” Jensen hardened his pitch, pinning Jared with his own eyes and stepping into his personal space. “Go on upstairs. Go to the studio. Get in position, in your clothes as is. And wait for me there.”  
  
It was a command, plain and simple, one that Jared should recognize and obey; at least Jensen hoped he would. He let out a huge sigh of relief when it actually worked, and watched with a painful yearning as his boy dragged his feet into the elevator.  
  
Soon as the elevator doors closed, Sam pulled him towards the lobby’s couch. “Just so you know: I know you’ve always been a little cuckoo in the head, but  _this_ , this is beyond crazy.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“This! Going up against someone like Clark Winslow for a guy that almost got you killed!”  
  
Jensen closed his eyes and collapsed back against the sofa he sat on. He felt drained, and the day hadn’t even begun yet. “Please just tell me you got something for me?”  
  
Sam pulled out a manila folder from her tote bag and handed it over. “This is everything we found on Winslow. Jared’s  _real_  medical reports from his two visits to the hospital – one after Winslow assaulted the kid himself, and the second one is from the penitentiary’s doctor on duty the day Jared was let out of solitary.”  
  
Jensen started to open the folder when Sam put a hand over his. “It’ll ruin your appetite, sweetie.”  
  
The veins in Jensen’s neck bulged as he opened the file anyway and waded through the documents, determinedly  _not_  looking at the pictures attached.  
  
“There is also an un-pursued lead in here on a retired prison guard who once got drunk at a bar, and rambled on about the time a sixteen-year old was detained in an adult prison, but he pulled a complete one-eighty afterwards, sober.”  
  
“So, this is not enough to get a conviction?”  
  
“Most likely not. Too circumstantial. But it is enough to open an investigation against the bastard.”  
  
“So what are we waiting for?” Jensen slapped the file shut.  
  
Sam raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to do this?"  
  
"Do you know anyone else with this kind of power to manipulate the system that this man does? Besides, when else will I ever get to use my celebrity status for a better cause? Except charity, of course."  
  
"This could get dangerous you know."  
  
"Not so long as I have  _you_ by my side," Jensen tried to smile, even made those puppy dog eyes she couldn't resist.  
  
Sam just shook her head. It was obvious she did not like this one bit but she didn't argue any further, and dialed a San Antonio number with her phone.  
  
“Clark Winslow, please. I’m calling on behalf of Jensen R. Ackles from New York.”  
  
Two minutes later, she handed the phone to Jensen.  
  
“Mr. Winslow, this is Jensen Ack… oh you’re familiar with my work? ... That’s awesome … Oh thanks, so very kind of you… yeah, you’ve actually made this so much easier … see Mr. Winslow, I’m about to hold a press conference this evening … and I happen to be in possession of this file, that’s full of incriminating material … it's about you Mr. Winslow. You and your step-son ... and I’ve a hunch this file and its contents could be very, very damaging to your upcoming career in politics …”

*******

  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Sam left directly from the lobby, with instructions to continue building the folder until it became enough to get a conviction. For now, Jensen’s concerns were more immediate and he entered his apartment with great trepidation. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or horrified when he found Jared in exactly the spot he’d ordered him to – lying on the floor in his studio, face down, still posing for the damn portrait.  
  
“Get up, baby,” he whispered not unkindly, as he offered the younger man a hand, which Jared didn’t take.  
  
His face was still a picture of eerie blankness. He’d clearly regressed to a month ago, back to being the homeless kid who'd forgotten he had a voice box.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jensen waited for Jared to look at him, once he was standing on his two feet again. “I didn’t mean to boss you around like that. I just…”  
  
He wasn’t allowed to finish because the door buzzed again.  _Crap._  
  
“Let’s go see who’s at the door, okay? Come on, Jare’…” Jensen didn’t want to let the boy out of his sight. Not yet.  
  
Jared quietly followed him out to the living room, and Jensen went to his security monitor. Matt and Welling stood waiting for them downstairs, and Jensen had no choice but to let them up.  
  
Once inside the apartment, Jensen noticed the casserole in Matt’s hands. “Just a welcome home thing, I guess,” he explained sheepishly making Jensen beam (and Welling roll his eyes).  
  
“Jared, this is Matt. You’ve seen his pictures, I think. And Matt, this is Jared, you’ve, uh, seen his… pictures too.”  
  
_Way to go,_  Jensen kicked himself mentally. That was the worst introduction in the history of introductions and even Welling thought so, as he stood visibly smirking in the background.  
  
Jared nodded a polite ‘Hi’ but refused to take his hands out of his pockets long enough to offer a handshake. Matt pretended the casserole was too heavy to spare a hand himself.  
  
“Wow, this place… doesn’t look that different at all, actually.” Matt offered uselessly for the sake of small talk.  
  
Jensen kept one eye on Jared and noticed how he withdrew into himself, growing more and despondent by the second. He turned towards the visitors. “I’ll be right back. Make yourselves comfortable. Mattie, you remember where the beer is, don't you?”  
  
Matt nodded and headed straight for the bottom freezer in the kitchen. Behind his back, Jensen sent Welling a smirk of his own, who responded with an icy glare before he turned away. Jensen could play the ex-boyfriend card all day just to see this man riled up. But his priorities lay elsewhere at the moment.  
  
“Come on, Jare’. Let’s get you settled in bed.”  
  
Jared glared at him too, before heading towards the bedroom on his own. He seemed just as eager to get away from the strangers in their home (his and Jensen’s home, at least that’s how Jensen saw it), but wasn’t too thrilled about Jensen’s hovering either.  
  
Once inside, he seemed to have expended the sudden burst of energy that powered his stride into the bedroom, and went back to being completely numb and reticent.  
  
“Do you want me to run you a bath?”  
  
Jared shook his head.  
  
“H-How about a shower then?”  
  
“I just wanna sleep, if you don’t mind.”  
  
Jensen was so relieved to hear Jared’s voice, he almost laughed. “Of course. C-Can I help you… with that?”  
  
He took tentative steps until he was right in front of Jared, and raised two hesitating hands to help him undress. He peeled off the jacket just as Jared stepped out of his shoes, and undid the buttons on the blue denim shirt. Jared turned around and let Jensen slip it off his shoulders, revealing a plain white t-shirt beneath. Not bothering to take his jeans off, Jared headed towards the bed. Jensen skipped ahead and pulled the covers away, letting his boy sink in with a sigh.  
  
Jared lay on his stomach, face turned away from the artist, his body language completely closed off like it’d never been in the short time that Jensen had known him. Jensen pulled a comforter over him and ran his fingers through the greasy hair, stopping only when he felt a stiff little flinch. He knew a dismissal when he saw one. He just never expected it to rip his insides to shreds.  
  
Maybe Jared just needed some time, and space. He knew  _he_  would, if he’d been in Jared’s place. Rationalizing to console himself, Jensen exhaled and stood up to leave. Before leaving though he decided, the hell with it, and pressed a soft kiss into the exposed nape of Jared’s neck. Quietly he turned and exited the room, leaving the door slightly ajar so he could keep an ear out in case Jared needed something.  
  
He convinced himself the sharp trembling that racked Jared’s body in response to the chaste little kiss was from relief or pleasure, and not fear, or repulsion.

*******

  
  
In the living room, Matt and Welling suddenly fell quiet when Jensen showed up. He looked at them and scoffed lightly, then crossed his arms before his chest. “Out with it.”  
  
Matt took a deep breath and leaned forward on the kitchen counter where he sat. He was on Jared’s bar stool, and that didn't sit so well with Jensen but he didn't comment. Welling stood by the balcony door taking long gulps from his bottle of Heineken, happy to let Matt spearhead the conversation.  
  
“Jensen, you know Erica will do everything she can legally. But we think you need to take some preemptive measures of your own before the press gets wind of this.”  
  
Of course. A celebrity artist in bed with a known criminal – it was just too good a scoop to pass over. It would also be only the second time Ackles, who always kept a low profile, would have given something  _this_  newsworthy for the press to chew on. The first one, of course, was the time he got mugged and beaten half to death in his own home.  
  
“Sooner or later, they’re going to make the connection, man. Which you know could potentially be very, very good for business, but it could also turn out to be very, very bad for you.”  
  
Jensen shrugged. He probably should have asked “how” but honestly he didn’t much care.  
  
Welling licked his lips and offered an explanation anyway. “Look, if they find out that you knew about Jared’s involvement with the burglaries, they could just as easily charge you for aiding and abetting, or harboring a fugitive.”  
  
“That won’t happen,” Jensen retorted with more confidence than he felt. “Besides, Erica is going to get the old lady to settle and no one else has ever figured it out so there is nothing to connect.”  
  
“Don’t be so sure about that. The old hag is as eccentric and vindictive as they come. Some of the artifacts she lost went all the way back to the 18th century, apparently.”  
  
“So, we just settle big that’s all. I’ll throw in all of  _my_  collection too. The prices should come back up again when the economy does.”  _If it does_.  
  
“Are you listening to yourself?” Welling pressed on. “You cannot pay off every single victim and you know there are more out there! And if they find out you’re so hell-bent on playing sugar daddy to that felon, they’re going to suck you dry and take you for all you’re worth. Stop and think about this for a minute. Do you really want to throw away everything you’ve worked so hard for, all your life?”  
  
Jensen gritted his teeth. “Don’t presume you know what I wanna do with my life, Tommy. You don’t know me, not anymore.”  
  
The darkly tanned man threw his hands up but backed off at that. He might have even agreed, actually. They weren’t friends, well, maybe once they were. But Tom’s loyalties had stayed with Matt after the break-up, obviously.  
  
“Please don’t get defensive, Jensen,” Matt pleaded. ”We’re just concerned about you.”  
  
“Oh, you’re concerned now? I’ve been in town three months and you never bothered to return any of my messages. Three months!”  
  
Tom and Matt looked at each other, a little guiltily. Matt’s guilt Jensen kind of understood, Tom’s not so much.  
  
“We-we thought you were doing fine,” Matt stuttered. “And we definitely didn’t know you’d hooked up with an ex-con until yesterday and not just any ex-con.  _The_  ex-con who put you in the hospital! If we knew, we would have come over to knock some sense into you long ago. Why the fuck was this not in your messages, huh?”  
  
It was Jensen’s turn to look guilty. Of course he didn’t mention Jared to Matt or anyone, to avoid this very  _conversation_. Because he was so not prepared for their judgment. Not now, not ever, not where Jared was concerned.  
  
For now, he skirted the issue completely and threw his hands up in the air by his sides. “What do you want from me?”  
  
Matt swallowed unhappily. “You have to send him away.”  
  
“No can do.”  
  
“It'd be just for awhile. Until shit blows over.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“For God’s sake, Jensen, stop being so goddamn unreasonable! Have you really learned nothing?” It wasn’t often Matt lost his cool, or raised his voice. It almost made Jensen smirk, almost.  
  
“This is  _madness_ ,” Matt whispered, shaking his head. “You’ve lost your mind over that little... scumbag.”  
  
Jensen winked. “He’s much,  _much_  bigger than you, Mattie.”  
  
Matt narrowed his eyes, not missing the double entendre at all. “He’s a scumbag.”  
  
Jensen ran out of patience at that. “Alright, stop calling him names, both of you! He’s changed. He’s got a job, he pays half the rent here. Well, not half, less than a quarter actually but he’s trying. And more importantly…”  
  
“They’re right, Jensen.”  
  
The voice came from behind him... broken, dripping despair. And in hindsight, Jensen realized not closing the bedroom door all the way was probably a bad idea. Jared must have heard everything. Jensen bit his lip and grimaced hard before turning around.  
  
“Jare’…” he started to explain but was stopped cold in his tracks at the sight before him.  
  
Jared stood on shaky legs, at the bedroom door, leaning against it, one hand gripping the door itself, almost as if for support, the other hanging by his side. It was this hand that held the gun. Jensen’s gun.  
  
And its safety was off.  
  
“Oh my God,” Matt whispered just as Tom started to quietly slide towards him.  
  
Jensen took a deep breath. “Wh-what are you doing?”  
  
Jared’s face was flushed and pale, sweating and miserable. He tried to smile, which came out all wrong with his face scrunched up like he was in indescribable pain.  
  
“You know they’re right. I know you do. You keep this around because of me. Don’t you?”  
  
“Jared, how long have you known about that gun?”  
  
“How long have you been making me sleep in your bed?”  
  
Jensen swallowed, and took a step closer. In response, Jared started violently. “Don’t come any closer. You know you can’t trust me, man. I’ll shoot.”  
  
Jensen scoffed. “You won’t shoot me.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“Because I know  _you_ , Jare’. I know how much you care about me. And I know you know how much I… how much I love you. Even if I’ve never said these words to you before…”  
  
“Stop it! You don’t know me. You have this  _idea_  of me in your head! That idea you paint in your paintings without all my ugly scars. You don’t know me at all!”  
  
Tom reached Matt who whispered breathlessly, “Man, he’s really snapped!”  
  
Tom didn’t reply and just pushed Matt behind himself. The shorter man protested weakly, not willing to use his best friend as a human shield but Tom wouldn’t take no for an answer. Calmly he started to move backwards with Matt in tow, inching slowly towards the exit.  
  
“Keep your phone handy,” he hissed to Matt, cursing the fact that he’d left his own Blackberry in the car.  
  
Jensen, in the meantime, stopped trying to talk Jared into dropping the gun and instead advanced on the miserable young man. “Jared, I bought that gun for protection, not for you.”  
  
“Protection from  _me_! Don’t deny it, man, I’m not fucking stupid!”  
  
When Jensen didn’t bother to refute, Jared’s face crumpled with more anguish than anyone could even fathom.  
  
“I don’t blame you, Jensen. I  _am_  a scumbag, a criminal who, no matter what he does, can never escape his past. It always catches up with me. It always ruins everything. Now it’s ruined us.”  
  
“Nothing is ruined! We still have each other. And we’re gonna fix this together, okay? Just give me the gun and…”  
  
Jared suddenly aimed the gun back at his own temple. “Don’t come any closer.”  
  
Jensen cocked his head to one side, his face a mask of utter disbelief. “Jared. Come on. You’re  _not_  going to shoot yourself.”  
  
“Wouldn’t I?” A drop of tear trickled down the side of his face.  
  
“You should listen to your friends, to your  _wonder ex-boyfriend_  over there,” Jared glanced at Matt for a brief instant, and it wasn’t a pleasant glance at all. It made Jensen want to roll his eyes because seriously, jealousy should be the least of his concerns right now.  
  
“You should’ve listened to him and not let me into your life, Jensen. Not back then, not now, not  _ever_!”  
  
“…”  
  
“You should have let me rot out there on the streets or in that… that…”  
  
Jensen ached, knowing exactly the words his boy couldn’t bring himself to speak –  _prison cell_.  
  
“You know I’d never do that.”  
  
“Why not? I deserve it. For everything I did, to you, to that old woman… she baked me a cake for fuck’s sake!” Jared almost laughed, sounding dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. “Pineapple upside down, I think…”  
  
Jensen blinked, like he’d just an epiphany. “You’re hungry. You’re just hungry, aren’t you, baby?”  
  
“ _Ackles_ …” Tom ground his teeth.  
  
“Let’s go grab something to eat, how about that?” Jensen could feel Tom glaring daggers into the back of his head, but Jared looked like he didn’t hear a word.  
  
“When I found out you were back in town, I thought, I  _hoped_  we could talk just once before you turned me in. That’s all I wanted – for you to hear me out, and maybe not… not hate me so much.”  
  
“I never did, baby. God knows I  _tried_  to hate you, but I just couldn’t!”  
  
Jared grimaced, shaking his head to deny Jensen’s words. “I was prepared then, to go to jail, for whatever the consequences might be. I had nothing to lose. But it’s different now. These last two months that we’ve had… damn it, why did you do this to me, Jensen?!?”  
  
“…”  
  
“And I know I should pay for my sins, I _should_. But going back to… to… it’d be so much easier for everyone if I just…”  
  
Jared’s finger wrapped a little more determinedly around the trigger. Jensen’s eyes narrowed then, and he took a purposeful step closer, his voice taking on a warning tone. “I thought you were smarter than this, Jare’.”  
  
“Jensen, relax, he’s got a gun for Christ’s sake.” Tom must have noticed the change in Jensen’s body language; the artist was visibly reaching the end of his rope. And that couldn’t possibly be good.  
  
Jensen tuned him out because suddenly, this had become about something else altogether. It was about Jared trusting Jensen, not the other way around.  
  
“Jared Tristan Padalecki, you listen to me. You’ve asked me this question one way or another a million times and my answer has never changed before and it still won’t, not even at gunpoint. NO, I’m not going to throw you out. NO, I’m not letting you go no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, no matter how many times your past catches up with you. I am  _not_  going anywhere, Jare’. And I swear to God this better be the last time you ask me this question or…”  
  
“Or what?”  
  
Jensen suddenly strode over moving so fast no one including Jared saw him coming. Tom had no time to blurt out the warning riding the tip of his tongue, while Matt had just enough time to squeeze his eyes shut. And Jared for his part was startled so bad, his finger slipped, completely by reflex.  
  
The trigger went off.  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**_[Epilogue]_ **

**_Matt and Tom, 9th August 2010_**. 

Matt Bomer stands in front of the newly unwrapped painting that’s just arrived. His arms are crossed, his horn-rimmed glasses dangling from a silver chain around his neck, his feet set apart and body weight pushed to the right one a little more than the left. So engrossed is he in studying the painting that he doesn’t hear a tall, dark man approach and wrap his arms around Matt from behind.   
  
Matt relaxes into the warm embrace, letting the back of his head rest on the broad chest just as the man lowers his head to kiss Matt’s temple tenderly. Matt cranes upwards until his mouth becomes accessible. And they stay lip-locked for a while, forgetting the world and its worries for a short, heavenly minute.   
  
Tom Welling loves to stare into Matt’s meridian blue eyes; he can do it for hours on end. Eyes that are as intriguingly unreadable as they are expressive, that change color with his state of mind. And when Matt smiles shyly, Tom grins right back before glancing up at the new artwork about to go up on the center wall of the E.Durance.   
  
“So this is the one, huh?”  
  
“Yep. Isn’t he beautiful?”  
  
“He’s gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as you, of course, my love.”   
  
“Mm, flattering indeed, thank you. Thou shalt get laid tonight for sure.”  
  
They chuckle and kiss again before looking back at the painting. It is huge for one, seven feet wide and five feet tall, an exquisite contemporary charcoal-and-oil rendition of a subject clearly very close to the artist’s heart. The work’s already created waves while on display at a charity exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art, and caused quite the stir in the critics’ community too. The New York Times calls it “Sublimely evocative” and “Striking two curiously entwined chords of empathy and desire to the point that you just can’t quit staring at it.” The Interview, rather lacking in originality as always, claims it is “Wickedly innocent or innocently wicked. Either way, a true contemporary masterpiece.”  
  
“I wasn’t sure we were gonna get it.”   
  
Business has been slow, thanks to the recession. So for the E.Durance to get a hold of the hottest painting of the year is an immense achievement.   
  
“Jensen wouldn’t have given it to any other gallery for the world,” Matt rebuts just as he beams with pride. Pride for his rekindled friendship with Jensen, pride for finally owning this tour-de-force that’d been three years in the making.   
  
“Look at the details on this thing. Remarkable.” Tom whispers with his art collector hat on. Everything from the elaborate Manhattan skyline to the tiniest of moles by the side of the smooth straight nose… no wonder it took Jensen so long to get it done.  
  
“What’s he calling it?”  
  
“The folie à deux.”  
  
“Psychotic disorder shared by two? Fits.”  
  
“Now, Tom. You promised.” Matt cranes his neck backwards to give Tom a mock-scathing look.   
  
“Fine.  _Unsuitable romance_ , then. Still fits.”  
  
“Smartass,” Matt lightly elbows his business partner and best friend in the chest, who by the way had also been secretly in love with Matt for awhile. Tom just never realized it himself. Until one night when, once it became clear Jensen was not going to return, Matt decided to get completely shit-faced.   
  
He relied entirely on Tom to take care of him both during and afterwards, and Tom did. He was gentle and kind, and protective, and passionate. Four days later, he screwed up the courage to confess his feelings, first to Matt and then to his beloved wife, Erica, who surprisingly took it much (much) better than anyone could have possibly expected.  
  
“Finally!” She’d exclaimed, jumping out of the chair to throw her arms around her gob-smacked husband. “I thought you two were never going to figure it out.”  
  
How she’d known, when even the two of them didn’t, was beyond Matt. Nor did he understand how it soon progressed from two distinct sets of couples to one single  _threesome_  and before he knew it, he was the object of not one but two lovers’ affections every night.   
  
Matt suddenly laughs. “Do you remember Jensen’s face when we told him about us?”  
  
Tom snorts into the crook of Matt’s neck. “He was so shocked he couldn’t say a word the rest of the evening. What did he say, finally, just before we left?”  
  
Matt deepens his voice to try and mimic Jensen’s baritone.  _“Sonofabitch, only in Chelsea.”_  
  
They share another laugh, before Matt turns within Tom’s arms. They automatically fall into a slow waltz, moving elegantly to the gallery’s soft ambient soundtrack by Susumu Yokota. Tom wraps both arms around the other man and leads easily.  
  
“So they’re really moving to Paris, huh?”  
  
“The French do love their art, even in this economy. Jensen must have broken it to his folks today. Hope they’re not too disappointed he’s going back.”  
  
Tom raises an eyebrow. “The Ackles’ are alright with all the… gayness right?”  
  
Matt waves it off lightly, “Oh, absolutely. It’s the other side that’s the problem.”  
  
“Hmm, didn’t Jared’s mom separate from that asshole second husband of hers? Maybe with that guy out of the picture, they can start to mend some fences.”  
  
Matt shrugs. “Don’t know how one goes about forgiving their own mother for giving up on them. Guess that’s for Jared to decide if he wants a relationship with her or not.” He makes a mental note to call his own mom tonight and thank her, for everything.  
  
Tom presses another kiss into the top of Matt’s head, rocking him from side to side. He’s having a little trouble taking his eyes away from the painting, but he’d die before admitting as much to Ackles.   
  
“What about Jared’s dad?”  
  
“Still in Zurich, happily re-married. They talk, now and then, I think.”  
  
“You know what, if I were in his place, I’d just say ‘the hell with you and your fucking incompetence as parents’ and never look back again. He’s got Jensen now.”  
  
Matt sends his boyfriend a squinty-eyed look. “Look at you, former card-carrying member of the ‘We hate Jensen that ginormous asshole’ club!?!”  
  
Tom rolls his eyes. “ _President_ , and okay, I know he’s a changed man. Nobody’s perfect, obviously. We’re all flawed one way or another. But seems to me, Jared brings out the best in him, somehow.”  
  
“Well, obviously. He got a Christmas tree for Chrissake! He’s never done that before, not with me, not until Jared asked for it.”  
  
Tom kisses the side of Matt’s face, almost as if to soothe the hurt he senses in Matt’s words, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The way things have turned out for Tom and Matt and Erica, their only regret is all the time they could’ve had together if they’d realized their feelings sooner.  
  
“And what’s this I hear about him quitting smoking too?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s what the kid wanted for his 21st birthday. They both quit together.”  
  
“Wow, who  _is_  this Jensen, really?”  
  
Matt smirks again, knowing what it’s taken for Tom to admit that he actually doesn’t hate Jensen so much anymore. He suspects his hatred was subconsciously driven more by jealousy than anything else, but he knows better than to voice it and incur the famous Welling wrath. Unless he  _wanted_  to incur it of course, preferably on his bare ass, across Welling’s lap, surrounded by a hundred rose-scented candles…  
  
“Mattie,” Tom drawls, reading the tell-tale signs of his lover’s body that he’s so intimately familiar with. “Please tell me it’s not all this Jensen-talk that’s turning you on?”  
  
Matt glares up at him once, before melting right back into his arms. “What makes you think it’s not this painting we’ve been gawking at for the last ten minutes?”  
  
Tom raises an eyebrow, “Hm, think the kid could be interested in a foursome?”   
  
Matt jabs his bony fist into Tom’s ribs, hard.   
  
“Ow, I’m kidding!” Tom kisses the annoyance off the adorably pouting lips, even if they both know it’s just pretense.  
  
“We should lock up,” Matt sighs reluctantly, after the kiss lasts longer and gets more intense than they plan it to be.   
  
Tom lets him go with even less enthusiasm, and Matt goes to his desk at one end of the gallery to retrieve his satchel.  
  
“Hey, Mattie?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You know I’m glad that you’ve re-connected with Jensen and all, now that I see, and  _believe_  Jared to be a truly reformed kid. But, I still wonder…”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“Why was he hanging with petty criminals if he was so traumatized by his first prison experience? Didn’t he realize that a life of crime would someday inevitably lead him right back to jail?”  
  
Matt frowns as he reaches his desk. “Maybe it was his way to get even, like a screw-you to the justice system that let him down so badly?”  
  
“Maybe,” Tom puts his hands in his slacks’ pockets, still looking at the painting. “Maybe he was bordering on suicidal all this time, just hiding it under a tough-guy routine.”  
  
Matt doesn’t know what to say. He slings his bag across one shoulder and walks back up to Tom, who apparently isn’t done wondering yet.  
  
“Do you think he really would’ve done it?”  
  
Matt gazes up at the painting. Jared's eyes, like little charcoal-edged pools of liquid resilience, on the verge of revealing a thousand secrets… they’d been frighteningly vacant that day. “I don’t know. Guess everyone has a breaking point. Maybe his was  _then_.”   
  
He can’t help but think back to that fateful December morning last year, when Jensen brought Jared home from the precinct. He remembered how broken the boy’s spirit had been, and how he’d unintentionally pulled the trigger with the Colt still aimed at his jugular.   
  
Luckily for everyone, the trigger went off, but the gun didn’t. It was empty.   
  
Matt sniggers recalling how Tom had valiantly pushed Matt behind himself, only to realize the gun wasn’t loaded and practically bent over, folding himself in two with relief. He also remembers vividly how stunned and lost Jared looked, how Jensen had calmly walked up to him… and whacked him upside his head.   
  
“I never bought any bullets, you moron,” he’d muttered desperately. “Who’s the stupid Southerner now, huh?”   
  
Jared’s knees had given out then and he buckled to the floor. Jensen followed right after, holding the kid tightly to himself, comforting him every which way possible as Jared finally,  _finally_ , let go of the storm he’d been holding at bay behind his hazel eyes.   
  
Matt and Tom slipped out soon after, still not entirely convinced that Jensen hadn’t gone off his rocker but mildly assured by Jared’s complete illiteracy when it came to guns. Of course things have changed a lot since then.  
  
Meanwhile, Erica made the whole legal hassle go away, although admittedly she herself had very little to do with it. She suspects there was someone else pulling the strings in the background (illegally), someone who got to Ellen Geer who suddenly was no longer sure of the ‘face she could never forget’. The press got completely cock-blocked too, as if someone  _really_ didn't want Tristan Winslow to make any kind of headlines whatsoever. And that’s not exactly easy to pull off.   
  
But she helped, without asking too many uncomfortable questions. And that allowed the boys to pick up the pieces and build themselves a whole new life, a better one, without the agonizing undercurrents of guilt or distrust. They know how Jared spaces out sometimes, even today. But they also see how hard Jensen works to ensure Jared never veers as close to the abyss as he did that day.  
  
Tom puts an arm around Matt, breathes in the sweet fragrance of his short hair deeply. “Come on, time to go home. Erica wants to double-cuddle you tonight.”  
  
Blushing lightly, Matt nestles against Tom, his slighter frame disappearing within the larger expanse of his lover’s. Tom slides one hand down to cup his bottom and Matt mewls. “God, one of these days, you two will crush me to death with your double-cuddles.”  
  
“Stop bitchin’, you know we’re both so madly in love with you, baby. Psychotic disorder shared by two, and all that.”  
  
Matt laughs and lets Tom lead him out the E.Durance. They turn off the music and all the lights behind them, casting into darkness acclaimed works of eighty-two renowned contemporary artists. But they leave a single strobe light on, softly illuminating the gallery centerpiece: The  _“_ folie à deux” by Jensen R. Ackles.

  
***** THE END *****  
  
  
  
  
**A/N:**  Do let me know what you think?


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